The Movie Blog

28 Comments

• 1. Liam replies at 28th September 2006, 8:09 am :

  this could be interesting if done respecting both sides.

  What’s funny is that “pro-lifers” are traditionally pro-capital punishment, and pro war - which is decidedly anti life.

  and “pro-choice” tend to be towards anti-war and anti-capital punishment.

  an interesting dichotomy.

  I think you’re right about the failing to communicate or agree on defining when life begins.

• 2. John Campea replies at 28th September 2006, 8:11 am :

  Hey Liam,

  YES YES YES!!! You nailed it right on the head! And I actually touch on that inconsistency in my documentary “Prince of Peace - God of War” (Shameless Plug).

• 3. Henrik replies at 28th September 2006, 8:14 am :

  Have you ever met a Pro-Life person who wasn’t religious?

  Religion sucks. Abortion rules. Man rules everything.

• 4. John Campea replies at 28th September 2006, 8:17 am :

  Ahhh… anti religious bigotry is alive and well.

  And yes, met many people who are pro-life who aren’t “religious”. On the flip side, I know some religious people who are pro-choice. You can’t just paint people with such a broad brush Henrik.

• 5. Henrik replies at 28th September 2006, 8:28 am :

  Oh I’m not a bigot. I think. What’s the definition? I don’t hate religious people, I just hate religion. I’m able to get along very well with people who are religious, and I thoroughly enjoy picking on the hipocrisy of their beliefs, and they are willing to defend themselves which I respect and admire.

  However… Abortion is murder, which is a no-no in at least christianity. So if you’re religious you can’t support it. Otherwise you’re just a retard, and I wasn’t talking about those.

  Where I live, religion isn’t very dominant. And the mere idea that religion should be opposed anymore than say something like antibiotics is preposterous here. And from what I understand, the places where abortion is actually a big issue is mostly the more religious states in America? And the middle-east of course, but I think that’s more of an anti-women point of view.

• 6. John Campea replies at 28th September 2006, 8:41 am :

  Hey Henrik,

  I’m glad you make a distinction between religion and religious people.

  But here’s an interesting question… if someone said “I hate homosexuality, but have no problems with homosexuals” how would that be looked at? I’m just wondering out loud here, I have no answer.

• 7. Liam replies at 28th September 2006, 9:05 am :

  “Love the sinner, Hate the Sin” is difficult when you’re raised a certain way then reality smacks you in the face.

  There needs to be a Dialogue, but how to start it without degrading into an Us vs. Them situation?

  If this Doc is done right it could help. If it’s done wrong it could hurt (IE: “If these walls could talk”)

• 8. Kneon Transitt replies at 28th September 2006, 9:32 am :

  It’ll be interesting to see if Kaye can pull this off. The problem with documentaries is that they often, if not unintentionally, reflect the viewpoints of the people making them. It’ll be hard to be completely unbiased, as every adult on the planet leans one way or the other on this issue. And even if you say you have no real opinion, I suppose that just makes you “pro choice.”

  Tough one.

  For the record, I supposed I could be considered “religious,” though I don’t agree with much of what is perpetuated under “organized religion.” I’m also against *any* unnecessary bloodshed, and that most certainly includes war.

  I have to agree that American History X was an excellent movie, however. :)

• 9. John Campea replies at 28th September 2006, 9:34 am :

  I think documentaries SHOULD take a point of view. It’s a movie, not a newscast afterall. Just as long as it makes it’s story, while being fair to all sides. Just my thoughts.

  ~John

• 10. Kneon Transitt replies at 28th September 2006, 9:37 am :

  Oh no — not saying documentaries *shouldn’t* — just saying that in this case, it seems as if he’s trying to give both sides a fair shot. Correct? Or did I misread that? And all I’m saying is that I think it’s truly impossible to be completely objective on an issue such as this.

• 11. Black Steven replies at 28th September 2006, 9:38 am :

  The problem is that the pro-choice/pro-life sides have become so clearly defined that it’s almost impossible to have real discussion about the issues. It always decends into one of those pointless, polarised slanging matches.

  I consider myself mostly pro-choice, but I am a little uncomfortable with the abortion issue. I’d actually really like to see a good, intelligent, even-handed documentary on the subject, so maybe this will be good. I have no use whatsoever for a polemic from either side.

  Also, Henrik. Come on, mate. Abortion rules? Man rules everything? That’s not helping anyone. You’re not a Nietzsche guy, are you?

• 12. Kneon Transitt replies at 28th September 2006, 9:49 am :

  Well, this issue often degenerates into partisan politics, doesn’t it? And polarization is the key there.

  Left. Right.
  Pro-Choice. Pro-Life.
  Us. Them.
  For us. Against us.
  Good? Evil?

  There’s more to it than that, and I hope Kaye addresses those folks whose opinions on this issue do not fall in line with their party’s political viewpoint.

  After all, partisan politics aren’t that far removed from organized religion, are they? It’s still a group of like-minded indivuals expecting its members to tow the party line — regardless of whether or not you personally agree with it.

• 13. Kneon Transitt replies at 28th September 2006, 9:51 am :

  Bah — no edit feature or spellcheck. ;)

  *indiVIDuals, not “indivuals”

• 14. griff replies at 28th September 2006, 9:54 am :

  penny lane’s documentary, “the abortion diaries” is a very realistic portrayal of the issue, similar to what tony kaye is trying to accomplish.

  http://theabortiondiaries.com

• 15. Norddeth replies at 28th September 2006, 10:11 am :

  I loved how the abortion issue was raised in Battlestar Galactica, where the ProChoice president had to outlaw abortion based on the fact that the human race was on the verge of extinction. It was a brilliant episode.

  For me, the issue of abortion always boils down to peoples opinions on when does a fertilized egg become a human being. New advances in pregnancy tests now allow you to know in as little as one day after fertilization. My prediction is that science will eventually create a standard as to precisely when this occurs and abortions will not be allowed after that time, but will be allowed before it.

  Tough tough issue, looking forward to this doc.

  nord

• 16. John Campea replies at 28th September 2006, 10:21 am :

  Hey Nord,

  Totally agree with you on the BSG episode.

  And yes, you’ve nailed it. The REAL debate is when is a fetus “alive”. Pro-Lifers aren’t trying to oppress women, they’re trying to save the life of babies (what’s wrong with that???). Pro-Choicers aren’t trying to kill babies, they’re just removing pieces of tissue (what’s wrong with that???).

  Let’s at least debate about the right thing and stop clouding the issues.

  Cheers.

  ~John

• 17. Todd replies at 28th September 2006, 10:32 am :

  This played at TIFF where it was very well received. Didn’t see it myself but everyone I spoke to who did commented on how remarkably balanced it is. Kaye’s really aimed to let both sides speak for themselves without really imposing a lot of editorial bias into it, which realistically is probably the only way he could have made this without getting roasted in the US.

• 18. Henrik replies at 28th September 2006, 2:19 pm :

  Hey Steven,

  what’ve you got against Nietzsche? Smart man. I appreciate his idea that Man rules the earth. How else am I supposed to think? I have yet to come across a creature more nuanced and fascinating, and we have the ability to dominate the lifeforms around us, and that gives us the right to do so.

  Never in my life have i wept one tear because an animal got extinct. The idea that we are supposed to save animals who can’t save themselves is preposterous, and the sheer hipocrisy of the people who campaign for the notion disgusts me.

  If you’re preaching that the environment should be saved, I don’t want to see you in a car. Ever. The minute you step into a car you’re a hipocrit. Even going on the internet. How much energy is spent on the hundreds of computers allowing you to access the internet? All of it hurts the environment, and you should know it. The ends does not justify the means. Practice what you preach.

• 19. Henrik replies at 28th September 2006, 2:31 pm :

  Also if you wanna debate when they’re alive, I’ll go with the Star Trek: TNG episode “Measure of a man”

  The criteria for being alive was that you were sentient. To me, sentience means the knowledge of one’s own existence. I doubt anybody in the world can claim that they had knowledge of their own existence untill AT LEAST 2-3 years old. So to me, if you could live with yourself, legally you should be able to abort your kids untill say 2 years old to be safe.

• 20. Henrik replies at 28th September 2006, 2:33 pm :

  Err I fucked that one up. I went a little ahead of my self.

  What I was talking about was self-awareness. Not sentience.

• 21. alfie replies at 28th September 2006, 3:36 pm :

  taking away a womans right to decide what happens to something that is growing in HER body is opression…no matter how you say it…

  it is nobodys business but the woman who is pregnant…..

• 22. John Campea replies at 28th September 2006, 3:42 pm :

  Hey Alfie,

  Ok, let me play devil’s advocate here. You’re making a statement for an individuals rights yes?

  Ok, let’s say for arguments sake that the unborn baby is actually a living human being. In that senario, would killing it without it’s consent not be “opressing” it’s right to live?

  In this senario, there are two competing sets of rights:

  1) The woman’s right to not be pregnent
  2) The baby’s right to not be killed

  I’m not saying I disagree with your basic position, I just think you have to acknowledge that this issue is more complicated and not quite as black and white. Just my thoughts.

• 23. alfie replies at 28th September 2006, 3:51 pm :

  plus why don’t these so called “pro life” people spend some of that stopping abortion energy they seem to have an abundance of into actually looking after and helping the millions of living breathing babies and children who are already born and suffering all over the world???

  I heard a guy on the radio talking about this and he was telling the story of his divorce…his wife was pregnant and had complications.the doctors told them that there was a 90% chance that if she went full term both her and the baby would die during labour if not before…..this nitwit telling the story left his wife because she wanted to terminate the pregnancy and try again….because he said he was a christian and couldn’t be part of a killing a baby….so he left her because she wanted to live…
  what a cock.

  My belief is whoever gets pregnant can decide what happens to it while it is in her body…

  some of these pricks want it outlawed outright even in cases on incest and rape. it is ridiculous…

  I don’t believe that in their mind they want to opress woman but that is the result what they are doing…taking away a womans right to choose her future…..not all woman are fit to be mothers…not all woman should have to go through with it if they dont want to….it is easy for the guys…all this focus on single mothers and welfare seems totally unfair…why don’t they focus more on these fucking deadbeat dads who seem to be happy to fuck these woman but not take any responsibility for their actions…but no we will focus on these poor woman who have a rough time of it already and make them feel like they are the ones to blame for the problem…it is all tied to the fact that these old republican rich white men wish it still the glory years of the fifties when men were men, woman shut the fuck up and a nigger was a nigger …. before all that ’60’s social concious nonsense came into play ….. they must hate the ’60’s with such a passion these backwartds thinking dicks…

  sorry i don’t even know what my point is anymore…

  this shit enrages me….

• 24. John Campea replies at 28th September 2006, 4:19 pm :

  Hey Alfie,

  HAHA… ok yeah, i can feel your frustration dude. But focus for a sec my man.

  Address my last comment. I’m actually really interested in what you have to say to it.

  Cheers!

  ~John

• 25. alfie replies at 28th September 2006, 5:25 pm :

  I believe a thinking living breathing person who has formed a mind and memories and doesn’t live in a womb rights outweigh those of a fetus.

  but if a compromise is whats needed that is fine with me……

  there are some scenarios where the law should be just out right up to the woman….in cases of rape, incest or if it looks like the woman may die due to the pregnancy then in my mind there is no choice but to leave it entirely up to her..no woman should be forced to give birth when she knows it will quite likely kill her….no woman should be forced to give birth to her rapists child and no woman should ever be forced to give birth to her fathers kid…..those are total no brainers and anyone who disagrees with that, well, I don’t know what to say you other than you are not very nice….

  I think the cut off point as it stands medically is fine….as afr as I know there is a cut off point isn’t there??

  As much as I have ranted about freedom of choice I don’t think they should ever get to a point where you are terminating a 35 week old fetus (with the same exceptions I have mentioned - it should always be an option for anyone under those circumstances)..but if you haven’t made up your mind by nearly full term, well, you should have by then…..I know it is a big decision and a hard one but you should know after 8 months….I am fine with the cut off point being in place but the right to choose should not be completely stripped away…..

  the funniest thing I ever saw on the matter was a picture of bush signing new abortion policy and it was him saitting there pen in hand and behind him smiling and watching were 6 grey haired old men -not a woman to be seen…summed it all up perfectly I thought…

  and lets not forget the “pro life” people who have murdered abortion doctors…way to go to get your point across…and all those lovely people who picket clinics calling young woman whores and sluts and murderers without having any idea as to what circumstances have driven them there..all the while quoting the bible….

  jesus would fucking hate these assholes….

• 26. Paul replies at 30th October 2006, 9:18 pm :

  A comment to liam who said that ‘What’s funny is that “pro-lifers” are traditionally pro-capital punishment, and pro war - which is decidedly anti life.

  and “pro-choice” tend to be towards anti-war and anti-capital punishment.

  an interesting dichotomy.’ The majority of prolifers in the USA are catholic who also sea the death penility and war as morally wrong. The USA has po;arised itself to a point where by any issue is politicasied and has the attitude you are with up or aginst us! The republicans have a sudo-christian clean cut fascade who have as much interest in prolife as they do of who lives or dies in iraq. All issues are blurred, pro-life = anti gay marraige = pro war = republican and that is not always true. After a while you cant seperate one from the other. Havent we seen this before with the attack on the twin towersw and the invasion of iraq. Most people from the US thought there was a conection! I am pro-life not because it is a political issue over women rights or unborn right but because it is a human rights issue. The US has to wake up and start a dialog in the direction of where you country is heading because if you dont the world will just become more crazy!

• 27. Melanie replies at 29th January 2007, 2:13 pm :

  There are essentially two issues which must be resolved concerning unborn embryos and fetuses. The first is, “Are they human beings?” The second is, “Should they be recognized as persons under the law?” We’ve already established that there is no debate on the first question. It is a matter of plain, objective science. Embryos and fetuses are fully and individually human from the moment of fertilization on. If this were not true, if unborn children were not demonstrably human, there would be no need to even talk about rights of personhood. “Removing a fetus” would be the moral equivalent of pulling a tooth. This, however, is not the case, and so the debate must now enter the political arena.
  There is a very real sense in which the need to answer this second question is, in itself, an absurdity. If you look up the word “person” in your average dictionary (we’ll use Webster’s), you’ll find something like this:
  Person n. A human being.
  A person, simply put, is a human being. This fact should be enough. The intrinsic humanity of unborn children, by definition, makes them persons and should, therefore, guarantee their protection under the law. For more than thirty years, however, this has not been the case. The situation we are left with is this. In America today, there is a huge and singular group of living human beings who have no protection under the law and are being killed en masse every day. Is that not astounding?! It is astounding, but not wholly unprecedented.

  There have been at least two other instances in American history in which specific groups of human beings were stripped of their rights of personhood as a means of justifying their horrible mistreatment. African-Americans and Native-Americans both felt the brunt of a system which denied their humanity, stripped their personhood and subjected them to horrors beyond measure. While the legal framework that made such injustice possible has now been removed, it remains firmly in place for unborn Americans.
  There remains one, and only one, group of human beings in the U.S. today for which being human is not enough. The inconvenience of their existence has resulted in a legal loophole of shameful proportions. What is a person? A person is a human being (unless, of course, you haven’t been born yet, in which case we’ll define personhood in any way possible so as to exclude you, kill you and forget you).
  Welcome to America.
  THE “CHOICE” FACADE
  Since abortion is impossible to defend on the merits (it kills a living human being, remember), “choice” has become the foundation of its political justification. Abortion advocates don’t want to talk about facts or science, but they love to talk about “choice”. “This is America…We’re free to choose…You can’t legislate morality!” Nothing has so clouded and confused the politics of this debate more than the misconstrued application of this one little term. The bottom line is this. Choice is nothing apart from the context to which it is applied. Individual choices are either recognized or restricted based upon the circumstances at hand. That’s how our laws work. You simply cannot talk about choice in isolation.
  For thirty years, however, abortion advocates have sought to bestow upon choice a nobility all its own, a nobility it has no claim to. They refuse to be called “pro-abortion”, but they gladly accept the label “pro-choice” (despite the fact that there are countless other issues for which they are decidedly not pro-choice). The fact is, laws against rape, murder, assault, theft, speeding, drunk-driving and even smoking are all “anti-choice”. They take away legal protection from one particular choice in order to protect a more foundational freedom. All such laws are “legislating morality”. That’s the only way society can survive. Personal choices that infringe on the life or livelihood of another human being must be legislated against. Therefore, anyone who defends legal abortion by simply arguing that people must be free to make their own choices is either ignorant or dishonest.
  Furthermore, in almost 99% of all U.S. abortions1, the woman having the abortion chose to have sexual intercourse in the first place. Therefore, it could just as easily be argued that these women already made their choice when they chose to engage in behavior that often leads to pregnancy. Ultimately, restricting a woman’s right to abortion does not restrict a woman’s right to not be pregnant. Abortion, after all, does not keep a woman from being pregnant. Abstinence does that. Abortion simply ends the pregnancy of an already pregnant woman by killing the embryo or fetus living within her.
  In the end, we are only free to choose so long as that choice doesn’t kill or harm someone else, and our government exists to take away those choices that do. Nobody argues that a man should be free to choose when the context is sexual assault. What a fool he would be to try and justify rape by saying, “My body, my choice.” Why? Because rape is a violent assault which involves more than just one body. And so is abortion. The heart of the issue is not “choice”. The real question is humanity, and nothing short of anarchy can guarantee the perfect freedom of choice.
  1. Just over 1% of all abortions in the United States happen as a result of rape: Torres A and Forrest JD, Why do women have abortions? Family Planning Perspectives, 1988, 24(4):169-176.
  COMPETING RIGHTS
  Politically speaking, abortion is an issue that involves competing rights. On the one hand, you have the mother’s right not to be pregnant. On the other hand, you have the baby’s right not to be killed. The question that must be answered is this. Which right is more fundamental? Which right has a greater claim? Abortion advocates argue that outlawing abortion would, in essence, elevate the rights of the unborn over and above those of the mother. “How can you make a fetus more important than a grown woman?”, they might ask. In reality, outlawing abortion wouldn’t be giving unborn children more rights, it would simply gain for them the one most fundamental right that no one can live without, the right to life.
  If a baby is not to be aborted, then the pregnant mother must remain pregnant. This will also require of her sickness, fatigue, reduced mobility, an enlarged body, and a new wardrobe. Fortunately, it is not a permanent condition. On the flip side, for a pregnant woman not to be pregnant, her child must be killed (unless she is past her 21st week of pregnancy, in which case the baby may well survive outside the womb). Abortion costs the unborn child his or her very life and it is a thoroughly permanent condition. This is what’s at stake, both for the child and for the mother. It is not an issue of who is more important, but rather who has more on the line.
  Any time the rights of two people stand in opposition to each other, the government must protect the more fundamental right. Let’s consider crosswalks. A car is driving down the street while a person is crossing the street. The law requires the driver of that car to slow down and stop (giving up their right to drive where they want, when they want, and at what speed they want) so that the pedestrian may cross the street in front of him. Why? Why must the driver temporarily give up his right to drive down the street just because someone else is walking across the street? Why is the right of the man on foot upheld while the right of the man in the car is denied? It is not because the pedestrian is more valuable than the driver but rather because, if the driver doesn’t stop, the pedestrian will likely be killed. In order for the driver to proceed down the street at full speed, at that moment, it will cost the pedestrian his life. In order for the pedestrian to finish crossing the street, at that moment, it will cost the driver a few minutes of drive time.

  Obviously, for a woman to remain pregnant, she gives up far more than a few minutes of drive time, but she gives up far less than the baby who would otherwise be killed. This is what it all comes down to. Abortion permanently takes away the life of the unborn. Pregnancy temporarily takes away some of the freedoms of the mother. Since there is far more at stake for the child, the more fundamental right to life must be upheld.
  SIZE
  There are four basic ways that the embryo or fetus (who is not protected under the law) is different from a newborn baby (who is protected under the law). The first difference is size. Embryos are smaller than fetuses who are smaller (usually) than newborns. The question, then, is this. What does size have to do with rights of personhood? The answer: nothing.

  Smaller people are no more or less human than those who are bigger. Embryos and fetuses are smaller than newborns just as newborns are smaller than infants and infants are smaller than toddlers and toddlers are smaller than adolescents and adolescents are smaller than teenagers and teenagers are smaller than adults. Size doesn’t matter. It is lawful to kill a fly and not lawful to kill a person, not because the person is bigger, but because the person is human. Humanity is what matters. Trees are generally bigger than people, but it is lawful to cut the branches off trees, but unlawful to cut arms off people. Why? Because humanity, not size, is what determines rights of personhood. This might seem laughably obvious but there are all number of people out there who actually justify abortion based simply on the tiny size of the embryo or fetus.

  Think about this, it is often true that newborn babies, born prematurely, are smaller than other fetuses who are still inside the womb. All those fetuses still in the womb, may be legally aborted in all fifty states despite the fact that they are bigger than many premature newborns. To argue that abortion is justified because early embryos and fetuses are so small is a rationale with no logical basis. Size doesn’t determine personhood after birth and it shouldn’t determine personhood before birth.

  LEVEL OF DEVELOPMENT
  It is quite true that embryos and fetuses are less developed than a newborn (unless, of course, that newborn was born prematurely). But this, too, is a distinction which has no moral significance. It is a difference of degree, not of kind. Physical and/or intellectual development has nothing to do with determining personhood outside the womb. It is equally insignificant for determining personhood inside the womb. Children are generally less developed than adults. People with developmental disabilities may be less developed than some children, and those with extraordinary mental capacity are no more human than those with lesser IQs. It is humanity, not brain capacity or arm strength that determines personhood.

  A person, as defined by the dictionary, is nothing more or less than a living human. Anyone who tries to narrow this general definition of personhood does so in an attempt to eliminate a certain group of people who is either getting in their way or has something they want. Creating self-defined definitions of personhood that are uniquely crafted to eliminate certain individuals from protection under the law has long been the method of choice for implementing all manner of genocidal atrocities.

  ENVIRONMENT
  The third difference between an embryo or fetus and a newborn baby is their place of residence. Embryos and fetuses live inside the womb, and newborn babies live outside the womb. Just like the distinctions that have gone before (size and development), this, too, is an inconsequential difference. Where someone lives has nothing to do with the essense of who that someone is. Moving from the bedroom to the kitchen, or from indoors to outdoors, or from your car to the mall doesn’t affect your personhood in the least. Personhood stems from inclusion in the human species not from the location in which you reside.
  For the entire duration of pregnancy, the tiny unborn child is a human being all it’s own. It is dependent upon its mother for many life-sustaning functions, but it is certainly not part of its mothers body. Any attempt to disqualify unborn children from receiving their due rights of personhood because they live in a womb rather than in a room is dishonest and unjust. It doesn’t affect the personhood of those outside the womb, and it shouldn’t affect the personhood of those inside the womb.
  DEGREE OF DEPENDENCY
  One of the favorite rationales abortion advocates have for stripping embryos and fetuses their rights of personhood is this issue of dependency. “Since a fetus can’t survive on its own,” they argue, “it has no inherent right to life”. What’s the problem with this argument? It could just as easily be extended to cover the whole of humanity. There isn’t a person alive anywhere who is radically independent from this biosphere in which we live. We are all dependent beings. Some of us are less dependent than others, but we are all dependent. The differences in dependencies that separate fetuses from the rest of us are differences of degree, not of kind.

  We must never forget that newborn babies, too, are utterly dependent upon their parents for survival. They are helpless and will die if left to themselves. Such dependency doesn’t make them non-persons, and it shouldn’t make unborn children non-persons either. Human beings outside the womb who must rely on kidney machines or pace-makers or insulin shots for their survival do not lose their rights of personhood for such dependency. Neither should human beings inside the womb lose their rights of personhood for being dependent upon an umbilical cord for their survival.

  What is most absurd about this whole line of thinking is the fact that dependency should merit more protection under the law, not less! This kind of reasoning is an utter perversion of the natural parental instinct. The younger and more dependent a child is, the more care and compassion we have for them. The U.S. Office of Juvenille Justice and Delinquency Prevention expresses it well when they say, “Homicides are always tragic, but our sympathies are heightened when the victim is a young child or adolescent. Thus, the deaths of juveniles raise understandable public concerns.” The nation is far more outraged at violence directed towards children than at violence directed towards other adults. The reason is simple. Children are more helpless, and less capable of defending themselves. And the younger the child is the truer this becomes. How we ever got to the place of using dependency against children rather than for children is a tragedy of staggering proportions..

  UNWANTEDNESS
  One of the favorite mantras of abortion advocates around the country is “Every Child a Wanted Child”. It sounds noble enough, until you realize what their solution to unwantedness is. If a child isn’t wanted, they argue, then it shouldn’t be born. The problem, of course, is that the child is already conceived, and the only way to keep said child from being born is to kill it. How do they justify such violence? Often by arguing that it is better for the child to be dead than for the child to be unwanted.

  This is a bogus argument. It doesn’t work for the simple fact that no one makes such an argument about children after birth. Whoever heard Planned Parenthood or the National Organization for Women (NOW) argue that it would be better to kill children waiting for adoption rather than let them suffer through an “unwanted” life? If someone’s right to life truly were established or removed based simply on their “wantedness”, that would be the deathnell of homeless men and women around the nation.

  Something as subjective as “wantedness” can never be the basis for granting someone the right to life, and abortion advocates know this. They don’t argue that mothers should be free to kill their “unwanted” children after birth because they know these children are living, human beings with full rights of personhood. The only reason they argue that mothers should be free to kill their unwanted children before birth is because they’re ignoring the scientific reality that these children, too, are living, human beings. The question is humanity, not wantedness.

  Finally, it must never be forgotten, that the very discussion of “wantedness” in the first place ignores a substantial reality. There are no “unwanted” children in the broadest sense. Even if the biological parents want nothing to do with their offspring, there are families all over the nation waiting desperately to adopt a baby, families who are willing to adopt diseased babies of any race or ethnicity. This oft-cited notion of “unwantedness” is misleading and is utterly insufficient to justify even a single abortion.

  POVERTY
  Abortion advocates often argue that it is acceptable for a woman to abort her pregnancy if she cannot afford to raise a child. While they are careful to use noble and compassionate language, they are essentially arguing that if a baby is going to be too expensive, the mother has a right to kill it. Such rationale falls apart on many levels, but we’ll start with the most fundamental. Like so many abortion arguments, this one assumes something about the unborn embryo or fetus that it hasn’t proved. It assumes, in fact, the very thing that it must prove before the argument can hold any water.

  Isn’t it true, that there are born-children in America today who are growing up in poverty? Yes it is true, but has anyone ever heard someone argue that the mothers of these born-children should have the right to kill them, since they can’t afford to raise them? No one makes such an absurd and heartless argument because we all know that no amount of financial hardship is sufficient rationale for killing another human being, particularly an innocent child. The only reason anyone uses this argument to try and justify abortion is because they are assuming that unborn children are not human persons. But until abortion advocates can demonstrate that children are not human beings before they’re born, all such appeals to financial hardship have no foundation. Poverty is not the issue. The real issue is the humanity of the unborn child.

  Another reason this “poverty” argument falls apart is because most abortion advocates support abortion on demand. They want women to have the right to abort their children for any reason or no reason at all. Therefore appealing to the hard cases of financial instability is just a smoke-screen designed to mask what is an incredibly broad agenda.

  Finally, and most practically, it is simply not true to suggest that there are any women in America who cannot afford to carry their pregnancy to term. There are now more crisis pregnancy care centers in this country than there are abortion providers. They all function to help bring women through their pregnancies by providing them the emotional and financial assistance they need to carry to term and, if need be, place for adoption (which would relieve all future financial obligation). Any woman who is pregnant, no matter what her financial situation, can receive the resources she needs to carry her baby to term.

  DISABILITY
  As shocking a reality as this is, abortion advocates would have you believe that putting a child to death is an acceptable solution to that child’s physical or mental disability. In much the same way that they argue for aborting children who might grow up in poverty, abortion advocates also argue for the right to abort children who might grow up with a disability…as if disease or handicap somehow strips a person of their right to live and relegates them to a life of misery. Such a suggestion is barbaric and inhumane and has no place in a just society. There are children of all ages, and adults too, who are alive today and are living through all manner of disease and disability. Do these physical limitations make them less than human? Is killing everyone who is sick really an acceptable way to treat sickness?

  The only reason anyone can suggest for children before birth what they would never suggest after birth is that they are assuming something about that child which they have not proven. Anyone who argues that abortion is a necessary safeguard against a life of suffering and disability is assuming that the unborn child is not yet a living human being. But this is exactly the point that they must prove before they can even begin to make such claims. Disability isn’t the issue, it’s humanity. We do not kill people for their disabilities, period. Therefore, unless we’re not human beings before we’re born, our disabilities should no more disqualify us from life before birth than they do after birth.

  Furthermore, this pressure to abort handicapped babies is built largely on congecture, on the mere “likelihood” that a child has some kind of disability. Often, the tests prove wrong, and more often still, these children, if allowed to live, end up with lives of joy and happiness that far exceeds those of their “more healthy” peers. Suffering and hardship are not bad things. They are means to a greater end, a crucial part of the human journey. Anyone who tries to eliminate suffering by killing the “sufferers” is establishing a very, very, very, very dangerous trend! It is not for us to decide who has a life worth living and who doesn’t, and we certainly wouldn’t want someone else making that decision for us!

  In the end, this whole question of disability is a mere disguise to divert attention from abortion’s true agenda. The fact is, abortion advocates support killing babies wether they have disabilities or not. They’re not arguing that abortion should be limited to fetus’ with severe handicaps. They’re arguing that the mother, alone, should have the right to kill her baby for any reason under the sun, and that is the most shocking reality of all.

  DRUG ADDICTION
  It is not uncommon to hear an abortion advocate incredulously ask something like this, “Do you really think a coke-addict, woman should be forced to have a baby that will grow up being addicted to crack and living on the street?” This, of course, is a loaded question, with poverty concerns mixed in as well, but it is essentially implying that a baby is better off dead than being born with a drug addiction. As with so many of the arguments that have come before it, it is assuming what it should be proving. There are children alive today who were born with drug addictions, and who are living with mother’s who continue to use cocaine, and yet these children have every bit as much of a right to life as all of their more fortunate contemporaries. Drug addiction isn’t the issue, humanity is the issue.

  Do we deal with drug addiction by killing everyone who is addicted to drugs? No we don’t. And we certainly wouldn’t suggest such treatment for those whose addiction is of no fault of their own. The only reason abortion is offered as a legitimate solution for a child who may grow up addicted to narcotics is because those making the suggestion are ignorant (or worse) concerning the status of unborn children.

  The tragic irony in America today is that, in most states, women can be prosecuted for “fetal abuse” if they take harmful drugs during their pregnancy, but these same women are perfectly free to hire someone to kill thier baby if they so choose. Mothers are free to kill, but not free to harm?! The hypocrisy of such schizophrenic laws makes a mockery of justice. Embryos and fetuses should be protected from harm and death.

  RAPE
  You can’t get very far in any discussion about abortion without considering the question of rape. Whereas the vast majority of pregnancies are the result of consensual sex, rape-based pregnancies present a unique dilemma. If a woman didn’t choose to engage in sex in the first place, should she have to carry to term a child that was the result of her forced union? The question should become much clearer if we add in some hypothetical details. Let’s say the woman does carry her child to term and decides to raise her daughter herself. After five years, however, she decides that the little girl’s presence in her life is too much of a burden. Should that mother have the right to kill her five year-old daughter who was born to her as a result of sexual assault?

  Obviously not. No matter what the circumstances are regarding the little girl’s conception, she is a human being with a right to life that cannot be taken away from her. But what about before she is born, does this change anything? No, it doesn’t. Abortion is an act of violence that kills a living human being. The circumstances surrounding the conception do not change this simple reality. Rape and abortion share this in common. They are both acts of violent assault against an innocent victim. Aborting a child conceived through rape simply extends this pattern of violence and victimhood. It does not “unrape” the woman, but it will almost certainly increase her regret and misery. Whereas rape is an act of violence for which she bears no responsibility, abortion is an act of violence for which she would be morally culpable. Consider the following email, received by Abort73 on January 19, 2007:
  I just wanted to say that I am so pleased to read your stance on abortion in the case of rape. My mother was a 14-year-old girl who was raped, and she tried to have an abortion. The only reason I am alive today is because the doctor miscalculated her due date and thought she was too far in the pregnancy to have the abortion, when in reality he was a month off (this actually happened twice). It pains me every time I hear even die hard pro-lifers say “except in the case of rape”. I know it is traumatizing for a girl or woman that is raped to have to carry a child, but it is no more traumatizing than someone who gets shot during a violent attack and has to deal with those wounds. Counseling and therapy can help heal the trauma, but the trauma will be there whether she has the abortion or not, and the abortion could even make it worse. It has caused me so much anxiety over the years to think that many pro-lifers would have approved of my mother’s abortion. By the way, she gave me up for adoption, and my adoptive parents were never able to have children. Thank you so much for this wonderful view against abortion even in the case of rape.
  Whenever abortion advocates bring up this question of rape, they do so disingenuously. The fact is, they think mothers should have the right to kill their unborn children no matter what the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy might be. They only ask about the “12 year-old girl forced to carry her father’s baby” because they know they can’t win the abortion debate on the merits. They appeal to the emotion of these extremely hard and rare cases because it helps mask their true agenda, which is abortion on demand. If it is not legitimate to kill a person conceived in rape after they’re born, then it is no more legitimate to kill that same person before they’re born. The question is humanity, not rape.
  OVERPOPULATION
  From time to time, abortion advocates will argue that abortion is a necessary mechanism for ensuring that the U.S. population does not surge out of control. “Without abortion,” they ask, “where would we put all of these extra kids?”

  Assuming that there is a population crisis in this country, the most basic question we must answer is this. Is killing innocent human beings a legitimate way to drive population numbers down? Those who suggest that abortion is a good way to control the population will quickly assert that embryos and fetuses aren’t really human beings yet. This, of course, is the very point that they must prove before they can even begin to make such an argument. Unfortunately for them, this is a point they can’t prove, and so they simply assume it is true and move on.

  Beyond the fact that overpopulation is not a sufficient moral rationale for killing off a portion of the population, the fact remains that the birth rate in the U.S. is only one of the factors influencing population growth. The Centers for Disease Control tell us in a 2004 report that the U.S. birth rate rose 1% in 2003 after 12 straight years of decline (2002 marked the lowest U.S. birth rate since national data has been available). Nevertheless, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that the U.S. population continues to grow by about one person every 12 seconds. Where is this growth coming from? Negative Population Growth tells us that while the U.S. birth rate has declined over the last decade, immigration has gone through the roof. They state on their website that the “foreign-born population in the U.S. is now 31.1 million, a record 57 percent increase since 1990.” Add to that this finding from page 69 of The Centers for Disease Control’s 2004 Health Report.
  In 2002 a total of 2.4 million deaths were reported in the United States. The overall age-adjusted death rate was 42 percent lower in 2002 than it was in 1950. The reduction in overall mortality during he last half of the 20th century was driven mostly by declines in mortality for such leading causes of death as heart disease, stroke, and unintentional injuries.
  In summary, birth rates have stayed roughly the same or declined. Immigration has increased by 57% since 1990 and life expectancy has increased by 42% since 1950. Of the three factors contributing to recent population growth, it is fair to say that the birth rate is the least significant of the three. Add to this the general U.S. population growth chart listed on the Negative Population Growth website. Since 1980, the three years with the highest increase in population growth were 1990 (1.06%), 1991 (1.07%), and 1992 (1.13%). These are the same three years for which the U.S. abortion rate was the highest in the nation’s history. Since the greatest increase in recent population growth corresponds with the highest abortion rates, we are given further evidence that something besides the birth rate is significantly influencing population growth.
  In the U.S. today, fewer babies are being born, people are living longer than ever and more and more immigrants are coming in. As such, the population at large is growing much older. From a sociological standpoint, an increasingly older population may pose a far greater threat to society than a supposed population explosion. Whenever a society fails to replace itself with sufficient numbers of young people, it becomes a society that cannot survive. Fewer children today will equal fewer parents tomorrow which will equal fewer children still in the generations to come. Abortion has already eliminated tens of millions of people from the American tax base. Where there were more than four wage earners for every retiree in 1980, that number is estimated to be at 2 to 1 by 2020 and only one and a half to one by 2040. The result? You do the math. One worker for every retired person? Social Security taxes would be beyond imagination. So long as abortion wipes out the young people, we will be left with a society that is older and older, a society where grandparents far outnumber children and where almost no one is left to pay for it all.
  CHILD ABUSE
  “If parents are forced to raise children they don’t want, it will simply lead to more and more child abuse.” This is yet another argument that many abortion advocates make in an attempt to justify the legitimacy of elective abortion. The problem? This argument assumes that unborn embryos and fetuses aren’t human beings. This, however is exactly the point they must prove before this argument can even gain a hearing. If embryos and fetuses are, in fact, human beings then killing them is an act of child abuse that far exceeds any mistreatment they might experience outside the womb. Killing a child as a means of sparing that child from potential suffering down the road is horrible social policy.

  Beyond this simple reality, there is much more to say about the connection between abortion and child abuse. It is a connection which only makes the case against abortion stronger, not weaker.

  Since abortion was federally legalized in 1973, the frequency of child abuse in America has gone up dramatically. From 1973 to 1982, the number of annual child abuse cases rose from 167,000 to 929,000, an increase of more than 500 percent! By 1991, the number of annual cases stood at 2.5 million, and it exceeded three million by 1997.

  It doesn’t take much imagination to see how abortion on demand is changing the way society looks at children. If children are expendable before birth, it is only logical that they begin to be seen as expendable after birth. Some bio-ethicists even suggest that parents be given a few weeks after their baby is born to decide if they want to keep or “abort” their newborn child. When mothers are given the legal right to dispose of their babies before birth, that very well could influence the way they see their children after birth. Since unborn children in America today have no rights to life beyond the affections of their mother, what happens to these children after birth, when the affections of their mother suddenly turns on them? Of the 5,000 born children who are killed annually in this nation, ninety-five percent are killed at the hands of one or both of their own parents.

  Fundamentally, abortion teaches us that violence is an acceptable way to deal with the burden of children. The corresponding increase in American child abuse indicates that this is a lesson we are learning all too well.

  ‘”WOMEN WILL DO IT ANYWAY”
  This final, last-ditch plea is essentially a concession that, yes, abortion is an act of violence. Yes, it kills a living human being. Yes, it is wrong, BUT… “women will do it anyway” (so it should be legal). Obviously, this is a very dangerous way to argue public policy, and it doesn’t work for two reasons.

  First, every form of lawless behavior imaginable could be rationalized with this same, “people are going to do it anyway” nonsense. “Banks are going to be robbed whether it’s lawful or not so let’s make it legal.” “Women will be raped wether it’s lawful or not so let’s make it legal.” “People are going to run red lights wether it’s lawful or not so let’s make it legal.” The list could go on and on. Laws against anti-social behavior do not eliminate such behavior altogether, but they certainly drive the numbers way down.

  Ostensibly, this argument is made in the name of safety. “If women can’t abort legally, they’ll do so illegally, and it will be much more dangerous for them.” While this claim is not true, even it were, nothing would change. Abortion would still be unjustified. Wouldn’t it be absurd to try and legalize armed robbery by arguing that granting such measures would make it much safer for the burglars to obtain what they’re trying to steal? Laws must protect the potential victim, not the potential assailant.

  The second problem with this “women will do it anyway” argument is that it only holds true for a small percentage of the population. One need only look at the frequency of abortion since it was first legalized to see that the legality of abortion plays a huge role in establishing a woman’s willingness to choose abortion.

  If the legality of abortion didn’t influence a woman’s willingness to choose abortion, then we wouldn’t have seen such a massive increase in abortion frequency during the years following its legalization. And should abortion again be outlawed at a future date, it would cease to be a viable option for most American women. The evidence is clear, both as it relates to abortion and as it relates to all other anti-social behavior. Legislation cannot eliminate such behavior altogether, but it can drive the frequency way down, sparing countless innocent victims from the injustice that would otherwise be theirs.

  ABORTION FOR PROFIT
  The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), the research arm of Planned Parenthood, estimates that there were 1.31 million abortions performed in the U.S. in the year 2000. Of the 1.31 million annual abortions, approximately 90% (1.18 million) are performed during the first trimester. The other 10% (131,000) are performed during the second and third trimester. The National Coalition of Abortion Providers tells us that the average 1st trimester abortion costs between $350-$650. The Women’s Medical Center estimates that a 2nd trimester abortion costs up to $3000 (with the price increasing the further along the pregnancy goes). If we take a $500 average for 1st trimester abortions and use a $3000 average for 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions, here’s what we get: $590 million are spent each year on first trimester abortions and $393 million are spent on late term abortions. That means that each year in the U.S., the abortion industry brings in approximately $983 million through their abortion services alone. If you add in the $273 million that Planned Parenthood (America’s largest abortion provider) receives annualy in government grants and contracts, the annual dollar amount moves well past 1 billion.

  Abortion, to put it plainly, is a very lucrative business, and this has been true from the beginning. Marvin Olasky observes and documents in his book, Abortion Rites, that there have long been doctors who supported abortion “if not for principle, at least for principal.”1 Like prostitution (which helped abortionists “flourish and grow rich” during the mid 1800’s)2, abortion offers the opportunity to get rich quick. For all of human history, the “blandishment of wealth” has led many to rationalize career choices that they would never otherwise dream of.3

  What this means to the abortion debate is that the people and organizations who defend the morality of abortion the most vehemently are generally the very same ones who rake in huge profits from its continued availability. This sets up a significant conflict of interest and should immediately call into question any claims they might make about their desire to reduce the number of abortions. When Planned Parenthood argues that they’re working hard to reduce the frequency of abortion, the fact remains that their financial livelihood is built on abortion. Planned Parenthood, then, is just like the big tobacco companies. Does anyone really believe that tobacco companies want people to stop smoking? Does anyone really believe that Planned Parenthood wants people to stop having abortions? Follow the money.

  Those who defend abortion, arguing that it is good and necessary for a healthy society, are defending an institution which is making them very wealthy. On the flip side, those who defend unborn life, arguing that abortion is an act of violence against an innocent human being, do so at great financial cost. There is no pay-off on the pro-life side. All the efforts to educate people about the reality of abortion consume large amounts of money, and there is no billion dollar product to refill the coffer. Think about it. Those who support abortion the most are growing rich off its continued availability while those who oppose abortion the most are losing money for their efforts. Who, then, is more likely to be honest and forthright about the issue at hand? Who is more likely to be motivated by principle and who is more likely to be motivated by profit?

  These are significant considerations.

  PROFIT OR PRINCIPLE?
  Dr. Warren Hern is one of the nation’s most prominent and well-known abortionists. He has been director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Colorado since 1975, and has written prolifically on abortion, both technically and philosophically. His 1984 book Abortion Practice remains the only single-author abortion textbook in publication. If you visit his website, and read his commentaries, you can’t get far without realizing that Dr. Hern is far more dedicated to supporting and promoting legal abortion than most pro-lifers are to opposing it. He says in “Life on the Front Lines”, that “we must risk our lives for our cause by continuing to provide safe abortion services in the face of [all] threats and attempts to intimidate. Only our own moral courage in doing what we see as right and ethical could be an effective counterpoise to the antiabortion movement.” In a New York Times Op-Ed piece from March 31, 2001 he states:

  It is unusual now for me to lift the coverings of windows in my home so I can see out. I have a nice view from my home of the famous Flatirons mountains that rise above Boulder, but it is a luxury now to enjoy that view. As my life is now, the windows cannot be uncovered at night. Sometimes I look into the homes of my neighbors and see them moving about and relaxing with their families. My office is a fortress of steel fences and bulletproof windows, and my home has become a hiding place from which I emerge and hope that I will not be the next assassin’s target.
  This is the cost of being an abortionist. Warren Hern has a beautiful home with a view of the Flatirons, but he lives in fear. He cannot enjoy it, or so it seems from his testimony. Being an outspoken, late-term abortionist has brought Dr. Hern face to face with (as he puts it) pro-life “terrorists”, “tyrants” and “fascists”. Abortion has cost him his marriage, and the ability to live a normal life, but still he persists. He keeps on aborting, “feeling defiant”. This raises the question, why does he do it? Why does he keep doing the very thing that keeps him from the care-free life that he envies his neighbors? Is Dr. Hern’s unyielding devotion to abortion motivated by profit or is he motivated by principle?

  If you asked him, no doubt he would say he is motivated by principle. Every abortionist would likely say as much, but Dr. Hern has more evidence than most to indicate that such claims may actually be true. While most abortionists hide in the shadows, content to grow rich in obscurity, Dr. Hern remains a very public abortion proponent. He is certainly not shy in supporting his grisly business, though he is careful to never speak to the procedure itself. Rather he works to demonize the opposition, and speculates that pro-lifers (a term he hates) don’t really care about abortion, they just want to sieze power, repress freedom, and terrorize society. In another article, he suggests that pro-lifers are motivated by contempt for “individual dignity”, contempt for women, contempt for free thought and a desire to supplant individualism with “fascist totalitarianism”. “When [pro-lifers] get through with people who provide abortions,” Dr. Herns asks, “who will be next? People who read books?”

  While this sensational rhetoric does nothing to actually justify abortion, Dr. Hern seems dumbfounded at the notion that anyone could possibly take offense to such a “positive event” in the first place. He blithely asserts that abortion does not kill children, but rather saves women’s “lives and futures,” and he marvels at the fact that anyone would oppose someone who is just trying to “help women”. But is Dr. Hern just trying to help women?

  Pastor Jack Hughes asks an interesting question in a January 9, 2005 sermon on abortion. He asks, “If the government pulled all their funding of abortion, and if insurance agencies said, ‘We aren’t doing abortions anymore,’ and the law said, ‘You can have an abortion, but doctors have to volunteer and do it for free’, what do you think would happen?” Would Dr. Hern’s principled support of abortion quickly find another vocation? What if Warren Hern, in order to continue performing abortions, had to do what most full-time, pro-lifers do, solicite donations and live on a tight budget? What if instead of not being able to look out his window onto the beautiful view of the Flatirons, he couldn’t afford to buy a house with such a beautiful view in the first place?

  It may be true that Warren Hern, and perhaps others, are driven into abortion more by principle than they are by profit, but it is also true that their skewed principles are buoyed by huge financial gain. That makes their “charity” very convenient. But even if such doctors would continue aborting if it cost them money, any principle which believes that killing one person is a justifiable way to “help” another person is not a principle worth having or protecting by law.
  THE COST OF LIFE
  There is a scene at the end of Schindler’s List where Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) is given a ring from the 1,200 Jews he bought from extermination. The ring is inscribed in Hebrew with a phrase that translates, “Whoever saves one life, saves the world.” As Schindler studies his gift, he starts to mumble, “I could’ve got more out… If I’d made more money, I threw away so much money, you have no idea. If I’d just…” His bookkeeper and friend interrupts to say, “There will be generations because of what you did,” to which Schindler responds, “I didn’t do enough… this car… why did I keep the car? Ten people, right there, ten more I could’ve got. This pin, Two people. This is gold. Two more people… at least one… one more person… I could’ve gotten one more person I didn’t.”

  For Oskar Schindler, the financial cost of preserving human life was very high. It cost him his entire fortune, and yet at the end of it all, he wasn’t lamenting the cost, but rather the fact that he hadn’t given up more for the sake of a few extra people. We look at his example and applaud. He understood the unique value of individual human beings. He understood that the value of life far exceeds the value of gold pins and luxury automobiles. He understood that financial sacrifice was the only appropriate response to the “cost of life”. Abortion proponents, however, have turned Schindler’s equation on its head. They argue that, in many cases, the value of a new baby is less than the value of the money it will take to feed and clothe that baby. This is utilitarianism at its ugly extreme, and the reasoning is no more honest than any of the other arguments people use to justify abortion. Babies aren’t any less expensive after they’re born, but very few people dare cite “extreme financial burden” as a legitimate reason for terminating their lives after birth (one exception to this rule was Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger who said in Woman and the New Race, 1920, that “The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”).

  Essentially, there are two ways to evaluate the “Cost of Life”. There is an immediate cost and a long-term cost. Abortion is a means of eliminating the short-term cost. For a few hundred bucks you can free yourself from the financial burden of diapers and baby food, but you also free yourself from a relationship with your child, you free yourself from someday having the support and care of a grown son or daughter. You free yourself from grand-kids and great grand-kids, and you free society from the long-term production and influence of an utterly unique human being. The late Julian Simon, well-known University of Maryland business professor, distinguished senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and author of The Economics of Population Growth, spent a lifetime demonstrating that people are the most valuable natural resource in the economic realm. He commented in the July 7, 1993 edition of Investor’s Business Daily (”Is a Population Bomb Ticking?”) that, “the most important benefit that population growth confers on an economy is that people increase the stock of useful knowledge. In the long run, the contributions people make to knowledge are great enough to overcome all the costs of population growth.” Simon goes on to say, “If we measure the scarcity of people the same way we measure the scarcity of economic goods – by the market price – then people are becoming more scarce, because the price of labor time has been rising almost everywhere in the world.” People create, people produce, people drive industry. With fewer people comes fewer innovations and less man-power.

  The value of a single human soul is a staggering thing. In the biblical economy, in fact, the value of one human soul exceeds that of the entire material universe combined. Souls are eternal. Gold and diamonds are not. The cost of raising a child is real and significant, but the cost of killing them is far greater.

  MINORITY ABORTIONS
  Abortion, by the numbers, is a racist institution. How so? Because abortion kills a far greater percentage of minority children in America than it does white children. The Alan Guttmacher fact sheet, Facts in Brief, reveals that, “Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are 2 1/2 times as likely.”

  The Centers for Disease Control, which has been tracking the number and characteristics of women obtaining legal induced abortions since 1969, gives us these numbers. White women, who make up 75% of the female population in the U.S., account for only 55% of all U.S. abortions. Black women, who make up 12.3% of the females in the U.S, account for 35% of all U.S. abortions. “Other races” of women fill out the remaining 12.5% of the female population and account for 10% of all U.S. abortions.1

  In terms of actual lives lost, the numbers are staggering. Each year, almost a half a million black babies are lost to abortion (based on 2000’s 1.31 million U.S. abortions). That averages out to well over 1,000 deaths a day, 365 days a year. The Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN ), the largest African-American pro-life group in the country has produced a chart which compares mortality rates in the Black community. It shows that abortion has claimed more than two and a half times more African-American lives since 1973 than the next five leading causes combined. The Centers for Disease Control tell us that 285,826 U.S. Blacks died in 2000. That’s about half of the approximately 458,500 blacks who lost their lives to abortion in that same year. To put it bluntly, abortion has thinned the black community in ways the Ku Klux Klan could have only dreamed of. It is a shameful and hidden reality.

  The fact that many black leaders and organizations support abortion rights does not change the reality of what is happening. The numbers don’t lie. Population estimates show that blacks will soon lose their status as the nation’s largest minority group, and abortion has been a driving force in this population shift. From 1973 to 2004, approximately 15 million blacks have lost their lives to abortion in the United States! The 2002 census shows that the black population in the U.S. stands at approximately 36 million. That means that nearly 30% of the black population has been lost to abortion, more than one in four.
  Of Planned Parenthood’s 850 nationwide clinics, almost 80% reside in minority communities. Is this a bizarre coincidence, or is it merely an extension of the eugenic principles that seem to have driven Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, a founder who is documented as saying, “We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”2 This statement, written in a 1939 letter to a colleague, can obviously be taken in one of two ways. Either she didn’t want the black community to wrongly assume that her efforts promoting birth control were an attempt to eliminate them, or she didn’t want the black community to find out that this is exactly what she had in mind. Planned Parenthood assumes the first, her opponents assume the latter. Based on the greater context of her writings, the truth likely lies in between. She probably didn’t have in mind the elimination of all blacks, but it is quite reasonable to concur that she did want to keep them in submission and in line. Whatever the case may be, the bottom line is this. Margaret Sanger’s vision of social purification was rooted in birth control and sterilization. Compared with abortion, these were minor threats to minority communities. Planned Parenthood’s contemporary vision of social purification is much more menacing. No longer is the organization driven by pregnancy prevention, it is now driven by pregnancy elimination. We can debate the racial intent of Planned Parenthood past and present, but we cannot debate the results. Abortion is by no means an equal opportunity killer. Abortion is by no means good for the minority community.
  1. The Centers for Disease Control categorizes race by three groups: white, black, and other races. Other races included Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian, Alaska Native, and women classified as “other” race. Ethnicity is categorized as Hispanic and non-Hispanic. Race and ethnicity are provided as separate characteristics and abortions are not cross-classified by race and ethnicity. Abortion numbers, ratios and rates are presented by race and by ethnicity.

  2. Donovan, Charles and Marshall, Robert, Blessed Are The Barren The Social Policy of Planned Parenthood, (Ignatius Press, 1991), pages 17-18.
  A LEGACY OF EUGENICS
  Eugenics is commonly defined as the, “The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding.” This scientific-sounding definition might seem benign, but eugenic theory has been the foundation for incalculable human suffering. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) has a portion of its website dedicated to those who were abused and/or killed as a direct result of Nazi eugenics. It opens this way:

  On July 14, 1933, the Nazi government instituted the “Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases.” This law, one of the first steps taken by the Nazis toward their goal of creating an Aryan “master race,” called for the sterilization of all persons who suffered from diseases considered hereditary, such as mental illness, learning disabilities, physical deformity, epilepsy, blindness, deafness, and severe alcoholism. With the law’s passage the Third Reich also stepped up its propaganda against the disabled, regularly labeling them “life unworthy of life” or “useless eaters” and highlighting their burden upon society.
  In another portion of the USHMM website we read that the “strategies (to eliminate ‘unfit’ Germans) began with forced sterilization and escalated toward mass murder. The most extreme measure, the Euthanasia Program, was in itself a rehearsal for Nazi Germany’s broader genocidal policies. It is estimated that 275,000 adults and children were murdered because of their disabilities.”

  The man most responsible for generating the practical framework that became the Nazi’s compulsory sterilization policy was Harry Laughlin, an American. Laughlin “received an honorary degree from the Nazi-controlled University of Heidelberg” as “a pioneer in the science of race cleansing,” and was devoted in the U.S. to “[developing] a ‘white’s only’ legal definition of ‘the American Race’”. He was cited in 1926 during a congressional immigration hearing as saying, “in regard to all forms of social inadequacy, the foreign born and their children, who make up about 34 percent of our population, are even inferior to our own native Negro population not long ago released from slavery.”1 Twelve years earlier Laughlin wrote candidly of eugenics in “Calculations on the Working out of a Proposed Program of Sterilization”.
  To purify the breeding stock of the race at all costs is the slogan of eugenics. The compulsory sterilization of certain degenerates is therefore designed as a eugenical agency complementary to the segregation of the socially unfit classes and to the control of the immigration of those who carry defective germ plasm.

  At first only the very lowest would be selected for sterilization. . . . As time passes, and the science of eugenics becomes more exact, and a corps of experts, competent to judge hereditary qualities, are developed, and public opinion rallies to the support of the measures, a large percentage could, with equal safety, be cut off each year.2
  Today the eugenic policies of Harry Laughlin and his cohorts are universally scorned. The Eugenics Archive tells us that “the vast majority of eugenics work has been completely discredited” for being mere “political and social [prejudice], rather than scientific [fact].” Nevertheless, despite massive public condemnation of this fraudulent “science”, one of the chief organizations to emerge from the American eugenics movement continues to thrive today. It is an organization that began its existence by sharing a combined office with the American Eugenics Society. It is an organization that published prolifically in support of eugenics and proudly displayed on its masthead the slogan, “Fewer But Fitter Children”. It is an organization that shared 11 board members in common with the American Eugenics Society (AES) and placed six AES council members on its Citizen’s Advisory Committee, including the afore-mentioned Harry Laughlin. What is the name of the organization? Back then it was called the American Birth Control League. Today it is called Planned Parenthood.

  Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was an outspoken eugenicist, as was nearly everyone else in association with her Birth Control League. One member of their Clinical Research Bureau, Dr. Hannah Stone, wrote that:
  The eugenicist, again, comes to birth control with a racial viewpoint. He sees in it an important aid towards controlling and improving the type and quality of the human stock… It is [on] this biological basis that I believe the birth control clinics of the future will be organized. In connection with the birth control center there will also be a eugenic department… In such a center the racial aspect of reproduction could be stressed.3
  Of course, race wasn’t their only concern. Their 1943 statement of goals included, a desire to “foster selective pregnancy” so as to “offer the eugenically unsound means to avoid bringing offspring into the world who would become social liabilities.”4 Nine years earlier, they had suggested mandating government-issued “birth permits” before anyone was given “permission” to reproduce. When Margaret Sanger’s long directorship of Planned Parenthood came to an end, she was succeeded by one Dr. Alan Guttmacher, a former vice-president of the American Eugenics Society.

  Today, Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the nation. They drive the industry, and the eugenic principles of their infancy show themselves in two significant ways. The first deals with race and the second with disability. Abortion destroys minority children at a rate that far exceeds that of white children. Margaret Sanger confided in a 1939 letter to her friend Charles Gamble that, “We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten that idea out if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” Planned Parenthood continues to foster support from the African-American community in public while they turn around and abort their children in private. They honor Dr. Martin Luther King with one hand (Dr. King received Planned Parenthood’s “Margaret Sanger Award” in 1966), and kill his people with the other. Their “service” to the black community is not a kind one.

  Planned Parenthood’s record concerning disability is no better. The widespread use of amniocentesis, beginning in the 1960’s, has been fatal to countless “birth-defective” children. In 1977 Planned Parenthood hailed genetic testing as a way to effectively control fetal abnormality. They suggested putting, “primary emphasis upon pregnancy testing and preventive services, prenatal diagnosis of fetal defects, [and] genetic counseling.”5 Planned Parenthood’s means for preventing birth-defects, of course, is to kill birth-defective children before they can be born. This is not medicine, this is eugenics. In 1991, a New York Times article reported of a severely disabled woman who quit her employment with Planned Parenthood because of their attitudes about disability. “There was a strong eugenics mentality that exhibited disdain, discomfort, and ignorance toward disabled babies.”6 What is the average disabled person to think when Planned Parenthood suggests euthanizing unborn babies who “might” have the same condition that they themselves are living with? Might it be a little troubling for children living with a disability outside the womb to hear Planned Parenthood argue that children with disabilities inside the womb are better off dead?

  The United Cerebral Palsy organization tells us on their website that they are working towards “effecting public policy that will enhance the ability of people with disabilities to live lives without limits in the communities, neighborhoods, schools and jobs of their choice”. They say this of genetic testing. “Genetic testing is clearly harmful if the information is used to deny jobs or insurance, or if it leads to other forms of discrimination.” Would killing unborn children for being genetically “unfit” fall under the category of “other forms of discrimination”? When genetic testing is used to identify and eliminate babies with disabilities, it is nothing more than the practical continuation of the eugenic principle that drove Planned Parenthood’s founders. Only now it’s worse. Where they use to be content with birth control and sterilization, abortion is now their mechanism of choice. Planned Parenthood can claim whatever they want, but the results speak for themselves. Afterall, you can know a tree by its fruit.
  1. Guy Irving Burch, notes about U.S. House of Representatives Immigration Hearing, 68th Congress, Birth Control Review (November 1926): 345
  2. Harry Laughlin (superintendent, Eugenics Record Office, Cold Springs Harbor, Long Island, New York), “Calculations on the Working out of a Proposed Program of Sterilization”, in Proceedings of the First National Conference on Race Betterment, January 8-12, 1914, Battle Creek, Michigan, published by the Race Betterment Foundation, ed. Emily F. Robbins, no copyright, excerpts, 478-94.
  3. Hannah Stone, M.D., “The Birth Control Clinic”, May, 1929, Eugenics, vol. 2, no. 5 (May 1929): 11.
  4.”A Statement of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., for 1943″, 9-10, SSCSC.
  5. PPFA, “Planned Births, the Future of the Family and the Quality of American Life: Towards a Comprehensive National Policy and Program”, June 1977, 3.
  6. “Abortion Issue Divides Advocates for Disabled”, The New York Times, National, July 4, 1991, A 11
  MEDICAL RISKS OF ABORTION
  Bank robbery is a dangerous business. Many are injured or killed in such attempts each year. Of course, it is not the hazards of bank robbery that make it unlawful. Rather, it is the harm (physical or financial) that it does to other people. It’s the same with abortion. The primary opposition to abortion is not rooted in its potential danger to women (and it can be dangerous). The main opposition comes from the fact that abortion kills a living human being. The safety of a particular activity does not make it right or wrong. The impact it has on other people does.
  With that said, there are two reasons why it is still important to lay out the medical risks of abortion. There may be many women (and men) who don’t care about the violence that abortion does to a baby, but there will be far fewer who don’t care about the violence that abortion does to their body. A greater understanding of the medical risks will dissuade them. Secondly, the abortion industry’s refusal to adequately inform women of the potential risks of abortion is further proof that they care more about money and politics than they do about a woman’s health. If they didn’t have a vested interest in her “choice”, why would they lobby so hard against disclosing all of the potential risks?
  To get a better understanding of the severity of the abortion procedure, consider the following testimony from Abortion Practice, written by Dr. Warren Hern, a leading late-term abortionist.
  A high level of operator skill is at least as important in abortion as it is in any surgical endeavor. Abortion is a blind procedure that proceeds by touch, awareness of the nuances of sensations provided by instruments, honesty, and caution…abortion, almost more than any other operation, demands experience to develop skill…Well trained, highly experienced, and reputable gynecologists found, to their dismay, that when abortions became legal and they began performing them, the complication rate were frequently quite high. Certain competence in other aspects of pelvic surgery does not in itself assure competence in abortion.
  Dr. Hern quotes in the same section from Dr. William Rashbaum who doesn’t consider that he became “competent” as an abortionist until performing “somewhere around 12,000 procedures”.

  In an April 9, 1995 article, Dr. Hern tells the New York Times, “As a society, I think we’ve been in denial about the risks of abortion both because of ideology, and because of economics. There are a lot of respectable doctors doing a lousy job.” Dr. Hern admits that even with the best care, 5 to 10 percent of first trimester abortions are incomplete, leaving behind tissue or even the entire fetal sac.
  As such, uterine damage, complications in future pregnancy, breast cancer and death are all risk factors associated with legal abortion.
  A wide range of peer-reviewed, medical studies have indicated that a woman who aborts her first pregn

• 28. Hadrian Dailey replies at 29th September 2007, 1:24 pm :

  … A little perspective:
  95% of all abortions performed in America today are for the express purpose of birth control, not for the health of the mother. There must be a better way than this! Children should not be just an inconvenience.

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