Quote of the Day

I love abortion. I don’t accept it. I don’t view it as a necessary evil. I embrace it. I donate to abortion funds. I write about how important it is to make sure that every woman has access to safe, legal abortion services. I have bumper stickers and buttons and t-shirts proclaiming my support for reproductive freedom. I love abortion. [Emphasis in original, though it was in italics, not bold.]

–Abortion activist Jessica DelBalzo, writing at RH Reality Check, under consideration as the Press Secretary for the Culture of Death Party

 

Abortion as Interstate Sacrament

Everybody knows that it is well-nigh impossible for schools to deal in any way with sick children, because they have to have parental permission to administer pretty much any kind of treatment. As a result, the school nurse is going the way of the dodo, because they is simply nothing that she or he can do except send kids home.

I mention that by way of reminder. Schools–those supposedly in loco parentis institutions to which we hand our children–have to have parents’ say-so to give out aspirin. But according to the president of an Episcopal seminary, she has the right, even the religious obligation, to take other people’s kids without parental knowledge much less permission to have a surgical procedure. I’ll bet you can guess which one. From CNS News:

Were Congress to outlaw the transporting of a minor without her parents’ permission across state lines to get an abortion, an abortion- and gay-rights activist testifying on Capitol Hill Thursday she would break the law to continue to help girls end their pregnancies.

Appearing as a Democratic Party witness at a hearing of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, president and dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. recalled the time she took a 15-year-old girl she had never met before to get an abortion.

“Although New Hampshire was closer to that girl’s home than Boston, as it happened, I did not take her across state lines,” Ragsdale said. “Nor did I, to my knowledge, break any laws.

“But if either of those things had been necessary in order to help her, I would have done them,” she continued. “And if helping young women like her should be made illegal I will, nonetheless, continue to do it.”

Ragsdale is a high priestess of the Moloch cult, one who famously maintains that abortion is a blessing. The “right” that she asserts is an extraordinary one: the right to take other’s people children, without their permission, across state lines for the purpose of undergoing a surgical procedure that, while generally safe (at least physically), nevertheless occasionally results in serious physical problems and can even be fatal. Given that we are talking about minor children here, this is about people who cannot legally give consent, so essentially Ragsdale is claiming that kidnapping should be legal if an abortion is performed rather than a ransom demanded. Amazingly enough, she isn’t alone:

Subcommittee chairman Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said a bill introduced in the House last summer – the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (H.R. 2299) – would make it an offense to “circumvent parental consent laws in a state by, without the parents’ knowledge, taking a minor girl across state lines for an abortion.”

He said he found it difficult to believe opposition to the law, like that expressed by the subcommittee’s ranking member Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), who called it an “assault to the reproductive rights of women.”

In general parlance, female children are not “women”–they are girls, who are still under considered under parental authority for virtually all purposes, including the above mentioned administration of aspirin. But for Nadler, as for Ragsdale and the rest of the culture of death, nothing–absolutely nothing–is of higher existential, much less constitutional,  significance than the right to kill one’s own children.

It is a measure of how obsessed the pro-abortion left is that it is willing to say, essentially, that everything else that we as a society believe is important must step aside when the sacramental rite of abortion is being performed. One rather wonders why they don’t just set up a church, and claim the right to abortion under the freedom of religion. They could even make Katherine Ragsdale their Presiding Bishop.

(Via MCJ.)

 

The Right to Kill Children, Explained (UPDATED)

I know this is kind of shooting-fish-in-a-barrel stuff, but it’s gotten enough attention that I thought I should break out the logic elephant gun. You’ve probably heard about the article that appeared in the Journal of Medical Ethics about infanticide “after-birth abortion” (the writers are apparently seeking to murder the English language as well as babies). A pair of medical ethicists named Francesca Minerva and Alberto Giubilini advocate a return to the ethics of the late Roman Empire:

A serious philosophical problem arises when the same conditions that would have justified abortion become known after birth. In such cases, we need to assess facts in order to decide whether the same arguments that apply to killing a human fetus can also be consistently applied to killing a newborn human.

Such an issue arises, for example, when an abnormality has not been detected during pregnancy or occurs during delivery….One example is the case of Treacher-Collins syndrome (TCS), a condition that affects 1 in every 10 000 births causing facial deformity and related physiological failures, in particular potentially life-threatening respiratory problems.

Read the description at the National Institutes of Health Genetic Home Reference page, and check out the pictures of TCS sufferers. The GHR says that the “potentially life-threatening respiratory problems” are in “severe” cases, not all, and gives a description that suggests that surgery can correct the problem. The authors chose this genetic abnormality, I suspect, not just because it is rare enough to not typically be tested for, but because parents would respond so harshly to an infant who looked like the children in some of the those pictures. So, they are essentially arguing that parents should have the right to kill their children if they are abnormally ugly.

However, such rare and severe pathologies are not the only ones that are likely to remain undetected until delivery; even more common congenital diseases that women are usually tested for could fail to be detected. An examination of 18 European registries reveals that between 2005 and 2009 only the 64% of Down’s syndrome cases were diagnosed through prenatal testing. This percentage indicates that, considering only the European areas under examination, about 1700 infants were born with Down’s syndrome without parents being aware of it before birth. Once these children are born, there is no choice for the parents but to keep the child, which sometimes is exactly what they would not have done if the disease had been diagnosed before birth.

“No choice but to keep the child”? What, they don’t have adoption where these people live? They are apparently unaware that there are many potential parents who would jump at the chance to adopt a Down’s Syndrome child. In any case, anyone who has ever known a victim of Down’s Syndrome knows that they are some of the happiest, warmest, most caring people living. The idea that abortion of them has become routine is sickening, and the idea that you’d kill a new-born just because of Down’s is barbaric.

Euthanasia in infants has been proposed by philosophers for children with severe abnormalities whose lives can be expected to be not worth living and who are experiencing unbearable suffering.

Minerva and Giubilini, however, plan to go beyond that. Way beyond.

Nonetheless, to bring up such children [as those with Down's Syndrome] might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care. On these grounds, the fact that a fetus has the potential to become a person who will have an (at least) acceptable life is no reason for prohibiting abortion. Therefore, we argue that, when circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.

They are right about this. In the West, the fact that a person may have a perfectly wonderful life is of no consequence. If a woman or her family is inconvenienced, she can dispose of an unborn child as she wishes. For years, Christian ethicists and pro-life leaders have made the argument that there is no logical way to prevent infanticide if you permit abortion on demand, and have been derided for using a “slippery slope” argument. Apparently Minerva and Giubilini are more than willing to grease the skids. Oh, and did you catch the reference to “the state”? That makes the logical next step that the government can require abortion in those circumstances where it believes it would be compelled to bear an “unbearable” burden. Think China’s one-child policy. hailed by enlightened statists everywhere, and especially in Western media and academia.

In spite of the oxymoron in the expression, we propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide’, to emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child.

Actually, they choose this language because abortion is acceptable in the West, whereas infanticide is not. Words that come to mind to describe this rhetorical device are “nonsensical,” dishonest” and “Owellian.”

Minerva and Giubilini recognize that the only way this makes sense is if new-born children have no more moral worth than an unborn one. They proceed to that argument next.

The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.

Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.

The implications of this are truly staggering. This kind of reasoning can be used to justify the killing of pretty much anyone who does not view life in the same way that the authors do. What is the “basic value” that a person must recognize in order to justify not being killed, and who gets to decide what qualifies as a “basic value”? Is this something a person has to be able to verbalize and explain to the satisfaction of a philosophy professor, an employer, a middle-school teacher, a nanny, or a parent? Is it enough to be able to draw a picture of that value with a crayon? The truth is I’ve known plenty of teen-agers who would fail this test, let alone new-borns.

Our point here is that, although it is hard to exactly determine when a subject starts or ceases to be a ‘person’, a necessary condition for a subject to have a right to X is that she is harmed by a decision to deprive her of X.

I’d say that a new-born infant, who if given so much as a moment’s opportunity begins to bond with his or her mother, will be harmed if that relationship is then taken from her. Problem solved.

Those who are only capable of experiencing pain and pleasure (like perhaps fetuses and certainly newborns) have a right not to be inflicted pain. If, in addition to experiencing pain and pleasure, an individual is capable of making any aims (like actual human and non-human persons), she is harmed if she is prevented from accomplishing her aims by being killed. Now, hardly can a newborn be said to have aims, as the future we imagine for it is merely a projection of our minds on its potential lives. It might start having expectations and develop a minimum level of self-awareness at a very early stage, but not in the first days or few weeks after birth. On the other hand, not only aims but also well-developed plans are concepts that certainly apply to those people (parents, siblings, society) who could be negatively or positively affected by the birth of that child. Therefore, the rights and interests of the actual people involved should represent the prevailing consideration in a decision about abortion and after-birth abortion.

These are clearly people who don’t have any or know any children. “Aims”? “Plans”? This is the way adults speak. They seem to be suggesting that Tommy had better say, “When I grow up I want to be an asparagus farmer” as soon as possible after he’s born, or else his parents won’t know whether he has any “aims” or “plans” and can dump him in the wood chipper  at their whim. As for children “having expectations” and developing “a minimum level of self-awareness,” this is the kind of vague, pseudo-psychological gobbledygook that the authors want to use to determine whether a human being is worthy of being allowed to live.

There is one other philosophical move Minerva and Giubilini have to make to think they’ve clinched their argument. They have to make the case that killing a new-born does not “harm” it:

If a potential person, like a fetus and a newborn, does not become an actual person, like you and us, then there is neither an actual nor a future person who can be harmed, which means that there is no harm at all. So, if you ask one of us if we would have been harmed, had our parents decided to kill us when we were fetuses or newborns, our answer is ‘no’, because they would have harmed someone who does not exist (the ‘us’ whom you are asking the question), which means no one. And if no one is harmed, then no harm occurred.

So, let me get this straight: having decided on the basis of ethereal notions like “self-awareness” that new-borns are not “persons” (the authors admit earlier, remember, that they are human beings, but “personhood” is a special category reserved for the “self-aware”), they become “someone who does not exist.” Kind of like your Aunt Mildred once you put her in the nursing home (and yes, I have no doubt that they say Mildred should be killed as well once she no longer measures up to their standards of “personhood”).

I think it interesting that Minerva and Giubilini say that they are “actual persons.” They do so on the basis of a purely arbitrary set of criteria. Why is being “self-aware” so important? Why are “aims” and “plans” so crucial? What if I decided–oh, I don’t know, pick something obvious–that if one weren’t Aryan that one was not a person, and therefore had no right to life? Or, to be a little less realistic, if one decided that the sum total of what one wanted from existence was to play video games and drink Ripple? Would that deprive one of “personhood”?

There’s one more thing that needs mentioning here, and that is that the authors do, in fact, recognize the possibility of adoption, but dismiss it. This needs to be quoted in full:

A possible objection to our argument is that after-birth abortion should be practised just on potential people who could never have a life worth living. Accordingly, healthy and potentially happy people should be given up for adoption if the family cannot raise them up. Why should we kill a healthy newborn when giving it up for adoption would not breach anyone’s right but possibly increase the happiness of people involved (adopters and adoptee)?

Our reply is the following. We have previously discussed the argument from potentiality, showing that it is not strong enough to outweigh the consideration of the interests of actual people. Indeed, however weak the interests of actual people can be, they will always trump the alleged interest of potential people to become actual ones, because this latter interest amounts to zero. On this perspective, the interests of the actual people involved matter, and among these interests, we also need to consider the interests of the mother who might suffer psychological distress from giving her child up for adoption. Birthmothers are often reported to experience serious psychological problems due to the inability to elaborate their loss and to cope with their grief. It is true that grief and sense of loss may accompany both abortion and after-birth abortion as well as adoption, but we cannot assume that for the birthmother the latter is the least traumatic. For example, ‘those who grieve a death must accept the irreversibility of the loss, but natural mothers often dream that their child will return to them. This makes it difficult to accept the reality of the loss because they can never be quite sure whether or not it is irreversible’.

We are not suggesting that these are definitive reasons against adoption as a valid alternative to after-birth abortion. Much depends on circumstances and psychological reactions. What we are suggesting is that, if interests of actual people should prevail, then after-birth abortion should be considered a permissible option for women who would be damaged by giving up their newborns for adoption.

So, a child who might well bring joy to someone else, and who may certainly live a full and productive life, can be killed after being born if the birth mother would be saddened to give her little one away.

So, what we have hear is an argument that only Alfred Rosenberg and Peter Singer could love, but it appears in a supposedly reputable international scholarly journal. Because there is decency still left in the world, it provoked a rather strong response, one that the editor of said journal, Julian Savulescu, thought was awfully illiberal. He took to the JME blog yesterday to explain his problem:

This article has elicited personally abusive correspondence to the authors, threatening their lives and personal safety. The Journal has received a string abusive emails for its decision to publish this article. This abuse is typically anonymous.

Death threats and the like are never the right response to an argument one doesn’t like. It’s wrong, and makes one look like a thug. The proper response is to destroy the argument.

He goes on to quote some of the comments from an article about the uproar that was published by The Blaze (one of which calls for the authors “immediate execution,” which is horrendous and absurd, but one of which calls the article “vile,” and another of which says, “The fact that the Journal of Medical Ethics published this outrageous and immoral piece of work is even scarier,” which I think is absolutely correct). He then proceeds:

As Editor of the Journal, I would like to defend its publication. The arguments presented, in fact, are largely not new and have been presented repeatedly in the academic literature and public fora by the most eminent philosophers and bioethicists in the world, including Peter Singer, Michael Tooley and John Harris in defence of infanticide, which the authors call after-birth abortion.

That Singer, Tooley, and Harris can be referred to as “the most eminent philosophers and bioethicists in the world” says far more about the state of philosophy and bioethics than it does about their defenses of infanticide.

The novel contribution of this paper is not an argument in favour of infanticide – the paper repeats the arguments made famous by Tooley and Singer – but rather their application in consideration of maternal and family interests. The paper also draws attention to the fact that infanticide is practised in the Netherlands.

Again, more’s the pity that the Netherlands has withdrawn from the circle of civilized nations at this point. The fact that infanticide is practiced there says nothing more about its legitimacy than does the fact that euthanasia was routinely practiced in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Oh, and the “novel contribution” of this paper is not that it applies arguments in favor of infanticide to considerations of women’s or families’ interests. It’s that it takes the logic of abortion-on-demand and extends it on in such a way as to make clear just how morally loathsome the latter is.

Savulescu then makes the case that the JME doesn’t support substantive positions, but is an open forum for the discussion of all points of view on bioethical subjects. But by picking out bottom-feeding anonymous comments from one article, and treating those as if they are some kind of threat to freedom of speech, he gets to this:

What the response to this article reveals, through the microscope of the web, is the deep disorder of the modern world. Not that people would give arguments in favour of infanticide, but the deep opposition that exists now to liberal values and fanatical opposition to any kind of reasoned engagement.

So arguing in public fora for infanticide doesn’t show the “deep disorder of the modern world.” That is found in the hostile reactions that some people have to those who make those arguments. Okey-dokey.

I know I just used this one last month, but it came back to me unbidden as an apt description of what this stuff represents:

UPDATE: John Harris, mentioned by Savulescu in his blog post, responds to the editor’s post:

I wish to clarify my position on infanticide to correct the impression that infanticide is something I defend or advocate.  There is a big difference between an analysis of the moral symmetry of some abortions and some cases of infanticide on the one hand,  and the defence of infanticide or indeed the advocacy of infanticide on the other.  I have always drawn a clear line between what I call “Green Papers” and “White Papers” in ethics.  Green papers are intellectual discussions of the issues, white papers are policy proposals.  I have never advocated or defended infanticide as a policy proposal.

I would not and do not advocate the legalization of infanticide on the basis of any alleged  ethical parity of infanticide with abortion.

Draw from that what you will.

UPDATE: If you believe that this thinking has no consequences in the real world, or that it’s all just academics blathering, I’d suggest you take a look at Patrick Brennan‘s article at National Review Online in which he discusses then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama’s opposition to the proposed Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which he voted against in 2001, 2002, and 2003. There are strong suggestions that now-President Obama would agree with at least some of the logic of  Minerva and Giubilini.

 

Pay for Abortion or Else (UPDATED)

Many people seem to think that the debate over a contraception mandate in Obamacare is no big deal. Groups like the Catholic Health Association bought into the compromise, so what’s the problem? The problem is that those pushing Catholic institutions to pay for contraception contrary to their convictions are simply waiting in the weeds for the day when they can do the same thing with abortion.

Don’t believe me? Check out this story from LifeNews about the goings-on in Washington state:

A bill in the Washington state legislature that would require that any insurance policy sold to state residents for maternity coverage also require policyholders to pay for coverage of abortions will get a vote soon.

The Family Policy Institute of Washington has analyzed the bill, which should be a concern to pro-life voters.

“Washington legislators have introduced legislation that would require all insurance policies that offer maternity coverage to also cover abortion,” the pro-life organization says. “This approach is consistent with Washington’s general approach of denying choice to anyone who doesn’t agree with them by taking away options from insurance providers and individuals to provide or purchase insurance plans that do not offer abortion.”

“This is similar to the militantly anti-choice position that the state is currently taking against an Olympia pharmacy that does not want to sell abortion drugs. Pro-choice, as long as you make the right choice,” FPIW says.

The usual suspects are pushing this one hard:

David Schmidt of Live Action also looked at the bill and said it is something that should engender strong opposition.

“Planned Parenthood and other abortion industry allies like NARAL are rallying behind a new Washington State bill that would require health insurance coverage for abortion if a health plan covers maternity care,” he says. “This act will force everyone, include those with pro-life values, to purchase an insurance plan that pays for elective abortion if they want an insurance plan that contains maternity coverage. Those interested in an insurance plan without abortion coverage would be banned from having their plan cover maternity care.”

“The bill is called the Reproductive Parity Act or HB 2330 and has passed the House Health Care & Wellness committee and Ways & Means committee on the back of support from Democrats. The companion Senate bill SB 6185 passed the Health & Long-Term Care committee 9 days ago and now heads to the Rules committee. The full state House and Senate have yet to hold a vote,” Schmidt added.

Schmidt noted how leading pro-abortion groups are pressing for the legislation.

“Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest which is the political lobbying arm of Planned Parenthood of the Northwest states, ‘we want to make sure all insurance policies provide abortion coverage,’” he said. “NARAL Pro-Choice Washington is also backing the mandated abortion coverage proposal and says that they have ‘mobilized its statewide network of members and activists to call and email their legislators in support of the Reproductive Parity Act.’”

Sponsor State Rep. Eileen Cody, set this up as an alternative to the abortion-free federal “insurance exchanges” that Obamacare will bring about as an alternative to state-mandated insurance:

The legislation is tied to the Obamacare law Congress passed, according to comments Cody made in an interview with the Seattle PI newspaper.

“The federal bill required that no federal money go towards abortion in the exchange:  We’re making sure there will be parity between all choices for reproductive rights,” she said. “There will be one plan that will not offer abortions and that will be the federal plan:  All plans offered through the state of Washington will offer abortion.”

Nor is this simply the action of fringe characters. State Sen. Steve Hobbs, a Democrat who is running for Congress, is a primary sponsor. And a Democrat running for governor, who is already in The Other Washington, is a big supporter:

Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., the Democrats’ candidate for governor, supports the measure to force policyholders to pay premiums for abortions.

“The Reproductive Parity Act will provide a legal guarantee that all women have access to a full range of reproductive health services as the health care exchanges are established,” Inslee said in a statement. “This is a matter of reaffirming our commitment to preserving choice for Washington women and ensuring women are ensured full control of their family planning and health care.”

So here’s the plan: have states mandate that insurers have to cover abortion in all plans. Then, once companies and institutions move to the federal exchanges to avoid covering abortion, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and their allies in Washington will immediately begin agitating to have the exchanges cover abortion, so as to close the “loophole” as a matter of “fairness” and “reproductive parity.”

You can bet the farm on it.

UPDATE: The Washington State House of Representatives has passed this abomination, according to LifeNews:

The Washington state House approved a bill that would require that any insurance policy sold to state residents for maternity coverage also require policyholders to pay for coverage of abortions will get a vote soon.

The House voted by a 52-46 vote to pass HB 2330 and send it on to the state Senate despite strong objection from pro-life advocates.

Leading pro-abortion groups praised the vote, with NARAL Pro-Choice Washington’s Interim Executive Director Christi Stapleton said in a statement, according to AP, that the measure “moves our state one step closer to protecting all Washington women’s access to truly comprehensive reproductive health care coverage.”

 

The Religion of Abortion

When I refer to abortion as the sacrament of the culture of death, I’m sure there are people who scoff. If so, take a listen to the language used by the new head of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Melaney Linton. From LifeNews.com:

“I am honored and humbled to be entrusted with such a sacred duty…I pledge to do everything in my power to fight back against the ideological attacks on Planned Parenthood and women, so that no teen will ever say she didn’t know how she got pregnant, no one will ever be denied basic reproductive health care, and no woman will ever be forced to bear children she cannot adequately support.”

The “sacred duty” line is from the PPGC web site. According to Texas Right to Life, it may be a duty that has been performed with, shall we say, criminal zeal:

Karen Reynolds, who worked at the Lufkin, Texas location from 1999 to 2009, has submitted company emails and memos to both the Texas and United States Attorneys General as evidence that Gulf Coast overbilled Medicaid, Title XX, and the Women’s Health Program, and even altered patient records in order to submit false bills.

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast has a total of 12 facilities in Texas and Louisiana, including the largest abortion facility in America–“Prevention Park”—which is a seven-story, 76,000 square foot abortuary located in Houston, Texas.

If Reynold’s accusation is true, the crime will disqualify Gulf Coast from ever again receiving government grants.  Such an outcome would be a victory for Texas taxpayers, women, and unborn children.

Planned Parenthood: sacrificing children to Moloch (and profit) since 1973.

 

Another Pro-Death Voice Heard

While I haven’t been able to find any official Episcopal Church response to the Komen-Planned Parenthood dustup, the head of the Episcopal Women’s Caucus took to the Intertubes yesterday in a piece published by the Episcopal News Service. The Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton sees this as part of a “war on women”:

There is an undeclared war on women in this country and around the world.

That war would have to do with the fact that girls are far more likely to be chosen for abortions than boys, right? Fat chance.

No one from the Komen Foundation is talking, but from the buzz on the Internet, hundreds of thousands of people – men and women – are pledging not to support the efforts of the organization that made pink ribbons an outward and visible sign of the “race for the cure” to end breast cancer.

So the war on women has to do with people withdrawing their support from the foremost private supplier of funds for breast cancer research, right? Guess again:

That battle was won but the war is far from over. The reproductive rights of women are under sharp attack from the religious and political forces of the evangelical right, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party. The battle plan is patently clear: limit women’s access to abortion, birth control, and services after rape and sexual assault by changing laws, state by state, and ensure that government funding is not delivered to any agency that supports reproductive rights in any way.  Do this with a ballot in one hand and a Bible in the other. And when you don’t get what you want, cry “religious intolerance.”

So in Kaeton’s world, the “war on women” has to do pretty much exclusively with any conceivable limitation that could be put on the sacrament of abortion. Got it.

On another front, human trafficking is a mega-billion dollar global industry unregulated by any country or international body. It is a criminal activity ignored and/or tolerated with devastating consequences for the person involved. Trafficking ranks just behind drug and arms trading as the most lucrative forms of commerce. It is no surprise that the vast majority of trafficked persons are women and children. Nor is it any shock that most of those who do the trafficking are men.

What this has to do with the other is mystifying. I am in complete accord, I expect, with Kaeton regarding the horrors of human trafficking, but it is hardly the case that it is “unregulated by any country or international body.” Internationally, there is the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, which went into force in December 2003 and has been ratified by 117 countries, including the United States (November 2005). And human trafficking is illegal in most of the world (though the Episcopal Church can be heard speaking out in favor of it–or at least opposed to doing anything much to stop it–when it involves bringing immigrants illegally into the United States from Mexico). That human trafficking is frequently “ignored and/or tolerated” is certainly true, but that doesn’t mean the international community–with some notable exceptions, such as Thailand, a center of the sex trade, which has yet to ratify the accord–hasn’t acted.

The violence continues unabated. A report released in late December 2011 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that one in four women in the United States suffers “severe physical violence,” and one in five is raped at some time in their life. Millions of women are suffering serious violence quietly at any time.

According to another CDC survey, four women die because of domestic violence every day in the United States of America. For every woman who dies, hundreds keep suffering without any recourse, without any letup in violence. They remain alive, but are not “living” by any dignified definition of the word.

See, to Kaeton opposition to abortion isn’t a valid moral perspective. It’s more like rape, or spousal abuse, or human trafficking.

The recent battle between Komen vs. Planned Parenthood gives us many insights on how women and men of quality can fight back for equality. The fatal flaw in the Komen battle plan was to consider Planned Parenthood just another organization. It is not. It is what it always has been: a movement. Organizations are fine. Movements are better.

Yes sir, Komen surely has learned a lesson, as have the rest of us: oppose Planned Parenthood and the Church of Abortion, as served by the likes of Elizabeth Kaeton, and you will be libeled, slandered, misrepresented, and delegitimized no matter how good anything else you do is.

 

 

 

Mainstream Media, Just Doing What They Do (UPDATED)

When the Komen Foundation-Planned Parenthood controversy broke out last week, the mainstream media was all over the situation, manning the ramparts of objectivity, giving us the straight scoop, presenting both sides of the story. You know: death culture cheerleaders. According to LifeNews.com:

Over the course of about 60 hours, ABC, CBS, and NBC emphasized the controversy with a whopping 13 morning and evening news stories. The soundbite count was loaded: 76 percent of the quotes came from supporters of Planned Parenthood (35 in total). Only 11 clips or statements came from Komen representatives or new allies.

On February 3, ABC’s Claire Shipman trumpeted the negative responses to the breast cancer charity’s decision: “This morning, outrage and disappointment engulfing the Internet. ‘All lies.’ ‘You have lost my support.’ ‘Playing politics with the lives of women.’ ‘I’ll never buy pink again.’” ABC showed the strongest tilt towards Planned Parenthood, with 10 sound bites or statements in favor of the organization, versus only two supporting Komen, a five-to-one margin.

The day before, both CBS and NBC highlighted a talking point from Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, who hyped that a “right-wing political campaign [was] bullying” the breast cancer foundation. NBC trailed not far behind ABC in terms of slant towards the abortion giant, with 15 clips in favor of the liberal darling, and four supporting Komen, a nearly four-to-one imbalance.

CBS displayed the least amount of tilt in the area of soundbites/statements, with 10 in favor of Planned Parenthood and five in favor of the pink ribbon foundation, or an overall two-to-one ratio. However, one report from correspondent Nancy Cordes on the February 2 edition of CBS Evening News had five in favor of the abortion leviathan, versus just two soundbites from Komen president Nancy Brinker.

Matthew Balan of the Media Research Center notes a contrast between the white-hot hysteria that could be found on the Big Three compared to their coverage of the Obamacare contraception mandate/First Amendment controversy:

By contrast to those 13 reports on the feminist “firestorm,” when the Obama administration announced on January 20 that it was giving religious institutions one year to comply with a mandate for coverage of sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception in their health plans without a co-pay, these same networks all but ignored the face-off with angry Catholic bishops and their flocks. It took CBS 10 days to air one news brief about the controversy on CBS This Morning on January 30. Neither ABC nor NBC have aired anything on their morning and evening newscasts over the past two weeks, and CBS hasn’t done anything since giving that one brief.

I’m so glad there’s no such thing as a bias toward political and moral liberalism in the mainstream media. Otherwise, these figures might look suspicious.

UPDATE: Just a reminder, these are the same people who ignored the tens if not hundreds of thousands of Right-to-Life marchers in numerous cities in January of 2012. And 2011. And 2010…

 

Feeding the Abortion Beast

According to the National Journal, the kerfuffle with the Susan B. Komen Foundation has turned out to be a bonanza for Planned Parenthood:

Planned Parenthood raised nearly $3 million from more than 10,000 donors over three days, following an announcement by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation  that the womens’ health organization would no longer be eligible for grants. The Komen Foundation reversed its decision on Friday and said that Planned Parenthood could still get Komen funding.

“I’ve never seen anything catch fire like this,” Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards said on a Friday conference call. “Today it sends an important message about these bullying kinds of tactics. It sends a really important message that women are willing to stand up for women and women’s health.”

One can’t help but laugh out loud at Richards’ suggesting that it was Komen that was doing the bullying, rather than the hordes of liberal activists who were willing to throw breast cancer research under the bus for the sake of Planned Parenthood’s boodle. Apparently there were plenty of high-minded feminists, congress critters and others who considered the possibility that PP’s profit margin might shrink of more consequence than the lives that might be saved by women being able to actually get mammograms and other forms of care that PP doesn’t provide. So, for instance, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) said on the House floor, ”I have been a big booster of the Susan G. Komen organization, but not anymore.” Heaven forbid that anyone cross Moloch.

The real question this raises for me, however, is this. As a result of this public temper tantrum thrown at a private organization (“how dare you decide how to spend your own money!”), Planned Parenthood has raised almost five times the amount of money as it was getting from Komen. That being the case, is PP going to use that money to replace what Komen would have given it, and free up the foundation to send that money to organizations that actually do stuff like mammograms?

If you don’t know the answer to that question, you haven’t been paying attention.

(Via Hot Air.)

 

This is the Cure (NOT: UPDATED)

Last year, I wrote about the grants that the Susan G. Komen Foundation (the breast cancer people) were giving to Planned Parenthood. Those grants were a disgrace–they served no purpose except to fatten PP’s bottom line, since that organization is unlicensed to do anything other than minimal breast exams, the kind women can do in their shower. Lots of pressure was brought on the Komen Foundation to get out of the business of supporting America’s biggest abortion mill, and it looks like it may have done the trick. According to the Associated Press:

The nation’s leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates – creating a bitter rift, linked to the abortion debate, between two iconic organizations that have assisted millions of women.

The change will mean a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.

Planned Parenthood says the move results from Komen bowing to pressure from anti-abortion activists. Komen says the key reason is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation in Congress – a probe launched by a conservative Republican who was urged to act by anti-abortion groups.

Planned Parenthood said the Komen grants totaled roughly $680,000 last year and $580,000 the year before, going to at least 19 of its affiliates for breast-cancer screening and other breast-health services.

Boo hoo. Maybe they could have used the money they’re spending on their new headquarters to replace the Komen funding:

The nation’s biggest abortion business has purchased part of a building in New York City that will become its national headquarters. New city records reveal Planned Parenthood purchased a commercial condo unit at 424 West 33rd Street for $34.8 million.

Not that PP does anything without grabbing money out of the government:

According to the New York City Industrial Development, “Approximately $15,000,000 civic facility revenue bond transaction for the benefit of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., a not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt organization that provides services to, and coordinates the activities nationally of, its member affiliates in the areas of reproductive and complementary health care and education services and promotion of research and advancement of technology in reproductive health care.”

“The proceeds of the bonds will be used to finance or refinance the renovation, equipping and furnishing of leasehold improvements constituting approximately 104,000 square feet of space in an approximately 192,000 square foot building located upon an approximately 13,045 square foot parcel of land located at 424-438 West 33rd Street, New York, New York, Block 729, Lot 163, to be used in whole, or in part, by Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Inc., The Planned Parenthood Foundation, Inc., and Affiliates Risk Management Services, Inc.

Anyway, back to Komen. They say the cutoff is because of a congressional investigation:

Komen spokeswoman Leslie Aun said the cutoff results from the charity’s newly adopted criteria barring grants to organizations that are under investigation by local, state or federal authorities. According to Komen, this applies to Planned Parenthood because it’s the focus of an inquiry launched by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., seeking to determine whether public money was improperly spent on abortions.

While PP says it’s because Komen bowed to political pressure:

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has depicted Stearns’ probe as politically motivated and said she was dismayed that it had contributed to Komen’s decision to halt the grants to PPFA affiliates.

“It’s hard to understand how an organization with whom we share a mission of saving women’s lives could have bowed to this kind of bullying,” Richards told The Associated Press. “It’s really hurtful.”

Yeah, sucks to be you, doesn’t it, Cecile? She’s the head of an organization that has a $1 billion budget, gets almost half it’s money from the taxpayers, made close to a $20 million profit in 2010, and kills hundreds of thousands of baby girls every year, and she’s crying over the loss of a few hundred thousand bucks from a foundation whose mission really is to save women’s lives. My heart just bleeds for her distress.

Kudos to the Komen Foundation for doing the right thing, whatever the reasons (but don’t think we won’t be watching to see if they resume the funding once Rep. Stearns’ investigation is over).

(Via Hot Air.)

UPDATE: I’ve been out of town and off the Net since early yesterday morning, so I was shocked to open my news page this morning to see this from the Yahoo News:

Susan G. Koman for the Cure has reversed its decision to end grants to Planned Parenthood after twenty-two Democratic senators sent a letter to the group’s founder and CEO urging it to reconsider the decision.

The Dallas Morning News has a statement from Komen that I quote here in full:

We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.

The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.

It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics – anyone’s politics.

Starting this afternoon, we will have calls with our network and key supporters to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work. We ask for the public’s understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve.

We extend our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support we have received from so many in the past few days and we sincerely hope that these changes will be welcomed by those who have expressed their concern.

This is pathetic. Planned Parenthood doesn’t need Komen’s money, and does virtually no good with it (it certainly doesn’t save any lives). For Komen to claim that none of this had anything to do with politics is transparent nonsense, and the criteria it lays out for stopping funding of an organization (“criminal and conclusive in nature and not political”) can always be used as an out, since any investigation of Planned Parenthood will be accused of being political (and no matter how many PP employees are eventually convicted of criminal behavior, it can always be rationalized that they were just bad apples in a basically good barrel).

So much for the pat on the back, and so much for my support. Again.

UPDATE: As Mark puts it in the comments, this is at least in part a matter of the spoiled children of the angry left bullying its way into someone else’s pockets. Daniel Foster at NRO puts it this way, beginning with a quote from a pro-choice libertarian:

Will Wilkinson, who is pro legal abortion and probably the libertarian with whom I agree least often, gets it exactly right on this score, observing that there is more than a little gangsterism in the response from the PP set:

“You know, I’m not a big fan of Komen’s brandification of breast cancer, I dislike seeing pink ribbons plastered over everything, and I think Planned Parenthood is real swell, abortions and all. So I’m not especially inclined to come to Komen’s aid. But I’ll be damned if this doesn’t look a bit like PP throwing it’s weight around, knocking a few pieces of china off the shelves, sending a message to its other donors: ‘Nice foundation you got there. Wouldn’t want anything to, you know, happen to it.’”

Look, the beauty of free speech is that, if you’re inclined to do so, you can write a check to PP in an act of solidarity, or write a check to Komen as an expression of moral approval. That’s all fine. But there’s something quite a bit different, something creepy and not a little despicable, about the Planned Parenthood set’s besmirching Komen’s good name across a thousand platforms for having the audacity to stop giving them free money. And I don’t care why that decision was made, frankly. If it was made because PP is controversial and under congressional “investigation,” that’s a perfectly valid reason for an organization to disentangle itself. If it was made because they judged that money would have a greater impact if directed toward the provision of actual mammograms and not just clinical screenings, that makes sense. And if the decision was made because a controlling faction at Komen feels a moral disgust toward the dismemberment of viable fetuses and would rather not subsidize an outfit that does that 300,000 times a year — well that’s fine, too. None of those rationales justifies the outrageous non-sequiturs about how Komen “hates poor women.”

Amen to that.

 

On Your Knees, Pro-Lifers (UPDATED)

You’ve probably heard about the decision by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to force religious employers who aren’t specifically in the Word-and-Sacrament business (hospitals, colleges, etc.) to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, including abortifacients such as IUDs. Almost all of the outrage that has been expressed since has come from Roman Catholic leaders or from commentators such as Michael Gerson, Yuval Levin, and James Capretta (whose column is especially worth reading) who have focused almost exclusively on the impact the decision will have on Catholic institutions. But lots of other religious folks should be concerned, too.

For one thing, this will effect conservative Protestant organizations just as much as Catholic ones. Every para-church organization, from Focus on the Family to the Wycliffe Bible Translators to Inter-Varsity, will come under this mandate, because they are not primarily houses of worship. Evangelical Protestant schools from Wheaton College to Reformed Theological Seminary will also be effected. In the rule that was finalized on January 20, HHS says this about who is exempt from the requirement:

Specifically, the Departments seek to provide for a religious accommodation that respects the unique relationship between a house of worship and its employees in ministerial positions….

…[T]he amended regulations specify that, for purposes of this policy, a religious employer is one that: (1) Has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and (4) is a non-profit organization under section 6033(a)(1) and section 6033(a)(3)(A)(i) or (iii) of the Code. Section 6033(a)(3)(A)(i) and (iii) refer to churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations of churches, as well as to the exclusively religious activities of any religious order.

So one thing to keep in mind is that it isn’t only Catholics who are going to be told, “we don’t care what your religious principles are–you have to cover this at your own expense.”

For another, while those mainstream news outlets that have bothered to cover this issue have generally referred to the decision as covering “birth control,” at least some are in fact abortifacients. For instance, the “emergency contraception” drug Ella, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2010, acts to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. Supporters say it doesn’t “terminate pregnancy,” because technically speaking “pregnancy” doesn’t begin under implantation. It does end a unique human life, however. Under this decision, religious organizations that object to abortion and believe the scientific evidence that a human life begins with conception will be forced to pay for such drugs.

Finally, something that has been missing in all of the commentary I’ve read is that the supporters of this decision have no intention of stopping here. It is their goal that eventually the federal government will force all religious organizations, including churches, to include all manner of “reproductive services” in their insurance policies, or face government fines if they refuse. The Moloch-worshiping Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, for instance, said this when the HHS decision was announced:

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) celebrates the decision by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on January 20, 2012 to reaffirm the importance of contraceptive services as essential to the new health care plans and requiring that most religious employers comply with it. We recognize this is a victory for many women, but her decision not to extend this coverage to all Americans, no matter the religious perspective of their employer, is disappointing. All women deserve access to affordable birth control.

The Sebelius decision permits some religious institutions to refuse to provide contraceptive services if they are devoted to worship and employ and serve people of the same faith. Other religiously-affiliated nonprofits and employers will be required to offer contraceptive coverage with no co-pays or deductibles. In her ruling, Sebelius finalized rules proposed on August 3, 2011. She also allowed some religiously-based institutions to have an additional year to comply with the ruling.

We believe contraceptive services are critical for women’s reproductive health, regardless of religious affiliation. RCRC supports individual decision making about the use of contraception, based on the exercise of an individual’s conscience and values. The Sebelius decision reaffirms the critical need for contraceptive coverage by limiting the types of religiously-based institutions that can refuse to offer these contraceptive services to a narrow group. [Emphasis added.]

The RCRC, you’ll remember, includes the Episcopal Church, UCC, PCUSA, and General Board of Church and Society and Women’s Division of the United Methodist Church. They apparently stand for the power of the government to force their fellow Christians to bow the knee to Caesar and deny their Lord.

Planned Parenthood certainly doesn’t like exempting those religious Neanderthals, according to head honcho Cecile Richards:

The Obama administration reached this decision after hearing from major medical societies, patient advocates, members of Congress, and, most importantly, regular Americans who disagreed with efforts to undermine the birth control benefit. Indeed, a small but vocal group of women’s health opponents launched a campaign to pressure the administration to exempt religiously affiliated universities, hospitals, social service agencies, and schools from the birth control benefit. The law already allows religious organizations like churches and church associations to deny birth control coverage for their employees–an exemption Planned Parenthood disagrees with. But that wasn’t enough for opponents of contraception….

No employer should dictate whether their workers have access to affordable birth control, especially since it’s basic health care. [Emphasis added.]

The grand poobah of NARAL Pro-choice America doesn’t put it as baldly as these, but it’s still clear where she wants to go:

“All women should have access to contraceptive coverage, regardless of where they work,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “The administration stood firm against intensive lobbying efforts from anti-birth-control organizations trying to expand the refusal option even further to allow organizations and corporations to deny their employees contraceptive coverage. As a result, millions will get access to contraception—and they will not have to ask their bosses for permission.” [Emphasis added.]

Make no mistake about it: this is the camel’s nose under the tent, and it isn’t just a Catholic tent, either. Sooner or later, these and their fellow “reproductive rights” fanatics will be demanding insurance coverage for abortion from every employer in America, religious convictions be damned.

UPDATE: Via MCJ, here’s Ace (of Ace of Spades HQ) on what lies behind this decision, a bit of cultural analysis that hits the matter square on the head:

I don’t know what to say except the arrogance is breath-taking. Obama doesn’t understand the point of government.

The point of government is to run an orderly house in which a great many people may live together in relative harmony despite sharply disagreeing with each other on many things.

A hotelier, if his goal is to just run a successful hotel, should not care very much if some rooms are rented by Jews, and some by Catholics, and some by atheists; and some by families, and some by pairs of cheatin’ spouses.

Only if the hotelier puts his own moralism over the business would he attempt to force his guests to live by his specific rules of life.

Obama is a moralist, and an arrogant one. For all the talk of Christians being rigid moralists, the dirty little secret is that the left is far more rigidly, arrogantly moralistic, and it is cheerleaded by our cultural institutions (media, academia) rather than pushed back against, so its arrogance is encouraged.

Obama is pushing, very hard, a rigid moral system, and attempting to “shove it down the throats” of people who do not seek nor need his moral instruction.

It just happens to be that his code of morality is an unconventional one, borne not in the first century but in the twentieth, and which, when taken to extremes, has included conceptions of sexuality which are essentially Satanic in their license.

Can he make a little space for those who do not rush to embrace his Madonna Moralism?

No. For to do so would be to confess doubt about the Moral Scheme he has in mind for people; it would signal that he’s not utterly certain of his own moral beliefs.

And few on the political left have any sense of modesty about any of their culture-changing schemes.

They are so right that of course the coercive power of the state — with its machinery of stripping away the property and liberty of those who run afoul of it — should be deployed to wipe out mendicants and heretics.

One of the most cherished rights, never expressed anywhere but truly central to any truly free society, is the right to be Wrong. By which I mean, you should not just be free to do the things which the hegemonic culture deems to be “right.” No one ever tries to outlaw that which they themselves believe to be right.

What they attempt to do, of course, is outlaw that which they believe to be wrong.

If you do not respect a citizen’s right to be wrong — if your first impulse is to use the frightening machinery of state coercion to compel him to be “right,” as you see “right” — then you do not respect him at all.

This is the chief character flaw of the leftist movement — their inability to respect anyone at all but their own. A very provincial and solipisitically childish way to view the world, of course, which leads to a vicious arrogance in attempting to pound, pound, pound square pegs into the round holes the state has cut for them.

The left would just be wrong, and not dangerous, if it weren’t so arrogant about disposing of people’s freedom with a single thoughtless line of legislation.

It is that, the arrogance and the profound disrespect of anyone who does not wear the feathers and warpaint of their tribe, that makes them not just wrong but sinister. [Emphasis added.]