Comments on: Sheldon Adelson: Put aside social conservativism to reclaim America

By: Earl

Earl — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 02:41:37 +0000

gkong3: I suspect that you and I would have very little disagreement if we were to sit and chat a bit.

I completely agree with you that the “life of the mother” exception is mainly a red herring. The experts in the field claim that the odds of needing to kill the child to save the mother’s life are statistically indistinguishable from zero. It *is* true that some procedures or treatments of the mother will put the child at risk, and may even cause its death – that’s not the same thing as saying “Oh, I’m sick! I need an abortion.”

Pregnancies as a result of rape or incest are very rare. I don’t know the number, although perhaps measured in hundreds/thousands each year. We agree that the child is blameless and innocent. If it were anyone I cared for and had a right to input, I would urge them (including wife – when that was possible – or daughter, which is more currently real) to carry the baby. Better for everyone concerned, in the long run.

My objection is to giving the State the power to force the mother to carry a child, and risk her life, when the conception was not at her volition, and perhaps even against her resistance. I understand the arguments against my position, and there is some justice in them….but (so far, at least) I’m not convinced.

The “famous violinist” analogy is very contrived, and like all analogies, it fails if pushed too far. Suffice it to say that while I can easily construct a moral case for choosing to give the violinist life, I would NEVER use the State to force someone to do so. Think of the real-world possibilities! Forced kidney donation is one that’s being discussed, right now. When the State “owns” the citizens, lots of interesting things are possible. I will oppose that until I no longer have breath.

By: gkong3

gkong3 — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 02:22:20 +0000

@Earl: I get what you’re saying.

My point is this. The risk to the mother of a pregnancy (even an ectopic one) is one that can be seen far, far ahead before it actually poses a real danger. To abort a child under normal circumstances, therefore, is a pre-emptive measure. It would be similar to me pre-emptively shooting any large dog on sight, simply because they could go nuts and attack me, even if they pose no threat to me at the moment.

Using that rather contrived ‘famous violinist’ problem, what if the person you’re connected to had nothing to do with your being connected to him? He didn’t ask for it, he wasn’t expecting it, he didn’t say anything that could lead others to reasonably expect he wanted this outcome. In other words, he’s as blameless as you are, just snatched off to have this done to him as well.

Should you have the right to be able to choose terminating his existence? Which is what you’re doing, because through no fault of his own, he’s entirely dependent on your goodwill for his continued life.

It’s a contrived problem because in his case, he was going to die anyway. But an unborn child isn’t. The medical treatment is artificially imposed. Pregnancy is a natural biological process. One could argue that disconnecting your circulatory system is returning things to status quo; pregnancy is the status quo. Also, however you look at it, the Founders of the USA and the Framers of the Constitution used Biblical morality as a guideline to create the laws of the land.

By: Earl

Earl — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 19:03:19 +0000

gkong3: I don’t get the analogy about shooting the dogs.

To attempt a clarification of my earlier comment, there’s been a “famous violinist problem” around for some time. The idea being that you’re snatched off the street and wake up with your circulatory system connected to someone in the next bed. It’s explained that the guy is a very ill world-famous violinist with your exact blood type, and only the connection with you is keeping him alive. All it will take is nine months of the connection and then he’ll be fine. What do you do?

This is supposed to be analogous to a pregnancy…..and for a woman who is raped, it’s close, at least. I can see that one might go ahead and take the risk for nine months to save the other person (the violinist, or the unborn baby). Some Christians might say that one has a moral obligation to do so, but I’m not talking about that — my concern is with whether the State can legitimately require you to risk your life in either of these situations, when the situation was forced on you against your will.

My answer is “No, we should not give the State that power.”

Someone who is pregnant by a voluntary (even if regretted, later) act of intercourse has taken a risk of becoming pregnant, even if she was “trying” not to conceive. Refraining from intercourse is the only sure bet, something that everyone knows. If a baby is conceived, and the parents are unhappy about that, they cannot be allowed to kill the child if the State is really going to protect the defenseless against the more powerful.

By: gkong3

gkong3 — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:06:26 +0000

@Ymarsakar: You are most likely correct in that I do not understand the true nature of the problem.

I am a Christian and neither reside nor am a citizen of the USA; hence, I do not pretend to understand the dynamics of the situation there. I do recognise the polemic the Left uses revolves around emotion (the right to choose), and that there may even be a eugenics slant deep within the pro-abortionist lobby (I don’t know if I necessarily swallow that, but I recognise the argument).

So, for me, the argument that the unborn child is indisputably a human life, and furthermore, a helpless human life, with its only protection *other* humans, therefore resonates all the most. I see the legal framework (to treat abortion as a homicide) as a necessary evil. Let’s be honest, other forms of homicide can strike at our enlightened immediate self-interest – it can happen to *me* – whether any individual actually believes it *might* happen to him or not. Abortion *cannot* strike at our immediate self-interest, because it quite literally can’t happen to me any more.

I welcome your correcting my preconceptions, though.

@Earl: Hmm, not sure about the ‘pregnant against my will’ defence. Primarily, that would be like shooting every German Shepherd, Doberman, Alsatian and wolfhound on sight, on the (slight but not insignificant) off-chance that they might be rabid and/or attack and kill me. Yes, only 30-odd deaths occur from dogs annually, as opposed to nearly 20x that from pregnancy-related issues, but still.

By: Earl

Earl — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 06:28:56 +0000

Doug1943: Posing extreme alternatives and pretending that they’re the only ones available isn’t the best way to engage in discussion. Reasonable people can easily imagine something between abortion on demand and charging every woman who aborts with murder.

Some folk have suggested that women are victims in most cases, and it is the “provider” who should be charged with homicide. I can see some light in this, but would want to talk about it before buying in.

Since pregnancy involves a (small, but not insignificant) risk to the mother’s life, anyone impregnated against their will (rape or incest) has a “self-defense” claim to an abortion. It’s true that the child is an innocent, but the state should not be given the power to force the mother to risk her life if she decides not to offer succour to the infant she carries, if it was conceived as the result of force against her will.

If abortion were recognized for what it is – the killing of an innocent human being, then the “morning after pill” would presumably not be offered for sale. Preventing conception is not homicide, but that’s not what the “morning after pill” is intended to do.

We’re discussing this in the comment section of a blog. Doesn’t it seem silly to imagine that we’re going to be able to suggest laws that cover every case that might come up in real life? It does to me, and the above is only to demonstrate that the pro-life position is not the caricature that you’ve gotten somewhere.

By: Watchin’ Out? |

Watchin’ Out? | — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 05:20:04 +0000

[...] Second place with 2 votes – Bookworm Room- Sheldon Adelson: Put aside social conservativism to reclaim America [...]

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:37:39 +0000

Abortion in Roe vs Wade was given federal protection because one of the judges felt it was too dangerous to his daughter if the law was set against it.

That’s basically how it started, though the Left hijacked it sooner rather than later.

The current consensus amongst the strongest anti-Leftist abortion demographic is that they stop using federal law to imprison people who refuse to pay taxes that fund abortion.

The issue of legal vs illegality, prison vs non prison, is a Leftist landscape, designed expressly as a prison for the soul and to prevent any solutions from blossoming. The Left would never accept a deal concerning legal abortions but no federal funding. Their job is not to solve the situation, but to increase the division and strife amongst classes in order to engender friction and class warfare.

If you are thinking about this issue vis a vis the law, GK, you have not yet recognized the true problem, and thus your efforts will never fix it. Any of it.

By: gkong3

gkong3 — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 14:42:45 +0000

@Ymarsakar:

I am somewhat confused. Are you suggesting that because outlawing abortion-on-demand will give the State more power, such a law should not be passed? That the only action we should strive for is to render abortion a neutral action (and hence not given federal protection)?

If so, then this is not what I would consider a logical stance. Unlike many other actions, abortion indisputably results in the death of at least one human being; the zygote/embryo/foetus. Hence, to carry out an abortion is automatically homicide.

Now, it is true that there are justifiable homicides, but the general idea is that homicides are investigated, are they not? That even negligent homicides are punished, and only those taken in self-defence result in no legal consequences? I am not intimately familiar with the American legal system, so please do correct me if I’m wrong.

That being the case (if it is, I mean), abortion cannot be treated as a ‘neutral’ action, but must be viewed as a homicide. Worse; most abortions are planned. Even abortions for ectopic pregnancies (which are indeed done in self-defence) are planned; such abortions are rarely time-sensitive.

I do not believe that abortion can be treated as neutrally as the legalisation of recreational drugs or the decriminalisation of homosexuality. While these two latter actions do have a significant impact on the stability of societies, they mainly remain actions taken by willing individuals. In the case of abortion, it is the premeditated homicide of a helpless, *un*willing individual. Isn’t the whole drama of abortion revolving around this fact (i.e. is it a homicide)?

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 13:38:33 +0000

“If not, what should she be charged with? What should her punishment be?”
The fact that people keep asking strange questions about giving the state more power to punish citizens, is a result of brain washing from Leftist propaganda. Laws will not stop murder, mass shootings, abortions, greed, pyramid cons, or anything else for that matter.

The point is to get rid of the law, to make it neither legal nor illegal, so that people can decide what the best course of action is. Currently abortions in this country are decided by the state and Leftist advocacy groups. Individual choice was never existent to begin with.
If I think someone is going around killing people, I’m going to stop them if it interests me. The fact that the state is the one in the way, is the issue, not the other way around.

By: Doug1943

Doug1943 — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 08:45:42 +0000

Earl: You quite rightly point out that not all killing of human beings is murder: murder is a sub-set of homicide. We take into account factors such as intention, the mental state of the person committing homicide, and so on.
You argue: “Some homicides are murder, some are manslaughter, some are self-defense, etc….. ”

So, I must ask: what kind of homicide is killing a microscopic sperm-embedded-in-an-egg?
It’s done quite deliberately, the intention is to kill, the person doing it is usually quite rational, there is usually no issue of being in fear of one’s life.. So it’s not manslaughter, or self-defense.
If my wife decided that I had become too inconvenient for her, and she took an abortionists’ instruments to me, or poured some chemical on me that dissolved me, she would be charged with murder.
And since you say, quite logically from your point of view, “I’m not sure why killing an embryonic (or fetal) human being should be treated differently than killing any other human being”, then surely you must believe that a woman who takes a morning-after pill should be charged with murder?
If not, what should she be charged with? What should her punishment be?