Or to quote the temptress Lili von Shtupp, it's twue! In a bid to regain some level of political relevance, Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for a crack down on Crisis Pregnancy Centers because they dare attempt to dissuade women from having an abortion. Really. I saw images of her Twitter post, but still found it hard to believe. So I went hunting for some news stories. And there they were (in mostly local outlets).
The reason for her proposal? Apparently it's bad when women are dissuaded from aborting their pregnancies. Because, you know, nobody is actually pro-abortion:
Because per the American Medical Association Journal of "Ethics":
The centers, also referred to as pregnancy resource centers, claim to provide comprehensive women's heath care - while their true, and often religiously-inspired, mission is to halt women from going through with an abortion.
Once again, we are reminded that while some doctors, intellectuals and scientists fled from, or bravely resisted, the Nazi Party in Germany, most happily stayed and did the Party's bidding. After all, we know Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers never encourage women to have abortions. That's why they aren't unethical. Thus says the ethics of the AMA.
I especially like the subtle assumption that the real deal breaker and scary quote should be the 'religious' part of the centers' missions. Yep. When did we used to think that scholars and scientists and doctors are perforce objective seekers of truth and goodness and good will discourse? Are we past that yet?
Anyhoo, Ms. Warren puts the lie to the old 'pro-abortion activists care about women and babies' talking point. Like most things liberal, they care - when convenient. The moral grounding of post-war liberalism is that it's true only if convenient, and people matter only if convenient. Hence the MSM attempts to assure Americans that hope is around the corner and things could always be worse where the economy is concerned - because a liberal Democrat is in the White House. Or the monthly ignoring of the horrible rates of murder within the American black community. Again, doesn't help the narrative.
The funny part is that this also shows the lie of the pro-abortion activists who insist abortion opponents don't care about women or babies. By calling these centers out, it shows the world that someone may actually care about and work for the well being of women and children, even if they oppose abortion. They just don't do so in accordance with the Left's dogmas.
Yet for the Left, that last part is enough and all that matters. If you saved a million babies from starving, it would be as filthy rags if your charity failed to align with secular liberal dogma. I'm shocked at how many Christians appear to have warmed up to this little sleight of hand. And yet, a brief survey of Church history should make me wonder why I'm shocked.
It's a bit inconsistent to be told we do not care about women and their children when the pregnancy centers are being vandalized and destroyed by the ones who are accusing us of not helping women and children.
ReplyDeleteYou must be mistaken. I've seen nothing on the news about pregnancy centers being vandalized or destroyed. And if the media doesn't cover it, it must not be true.
DeleteYou're right David. What a twit I am for not realizing that. Thank you for setting me straight.
DeleteHeh. And the sad part? It should be a stupid joke, but alas, it is the truth.
DeleteThe MassLive story is a retarded Leftist word-sallad, but the AMA article raises some reasonable questions. I've read articles from the American OBGYN college and American Cancer Society questioning the alleged link between Abortion and cancer. The AMA article claims that abortion is safer for the mother than childbirth. Does the pro-life community have a counter-argument for these claims? I certainly hope so
ReplyDeleteI'm always leery about the tendency science has of demonstrating that ideals associated with modern liberalism - like abortion on demand - never have any negative consequences. Just like now. I can't go a week without seeing on the news that some otherwise healthy young celebrity or athlete has been rushed to the hospital, or died. No details being otherwise given. Likewise we know of some in our circles who have recently had problems with blood clots or other sudden cardio issues. Yet not a single peep from the media, medical pros, or anyone else about the obvious question. We won't even get into the AMA's insistence that there is no reason to question the sexual revolution, AIDS apparently having no real connection there. That's my problem. Looking at the trends, it seems any new idea or liberal value system never has any negative side effects, even when down home common sense strongly suggests otherwise.
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ReplyDeleteDave: Warren's babble amounts to flailing: the pursued bandit runs out of bullets, so he throws the gun backwards at the sheriff's horse. Yeah, that's gonna work.
The Left has no arguments left, so they gush emotions (which unfortunately modern media is pretty good at and which unfortunately we have been primed to respond to by too much media in the last half-century). We need to stay compassionate, but relentlessly rational. To borrow from Euripides' "Bacchae": we need to calmly hold the head of Pentheus up to Agave and say: "No matter what you thought or felt, this is what you really did."
"No matter what you thought or felt, this is what you really did"
DeleteAny appeal to the ancients always gets bonus point from me. But much of the whole post-war era liberal movement has demanded that we ignore the results of liberal activism. It has effectively made the awareness of a problem and a single liberal solution for a problem as one and the same. Therefore to question the solution is as good as denying the problem. Disagree with Affirmative Action? Clearly you deny racism exists. And this is done by forever refusing to connect any negatives to liberal activism (or finding those lovely studies that always miraculously prove the latest, greatest is never wrong).
I'm happy to deny anti-black animus is of much consequence. To the extent it is, it operates in the realm of low-skill service jobs where there's a great deal of turnover. Guilds and institutions are all in favor of systematic discrimination so long as it's whites and Orientals being squeezed out.
DeleteMost anti-Black racism of any real consequence is committed by city planners and rouge urban beat cops, in other words Blue State Bureaucrats (minions of mostly Democrat Mayors).
DeleteDonald, yes, there is a strong case to be made that the Democrats didn't miraculously turn on a dime and change from the party of Jim Crow, Segregation, and opposition to Civil Rights legislation - they simply found newer, slicker ways of getting it done.
DeleteBut Shea and Greydanus told me that nobody is actually pro-abortion.
ReplyDeleteSticking one's head in the sand, putting blinders on, covering one's ears and insisting there are no camps in the German woods are all necessary actions for Christians who try to pound that square peg of the Gospel into the round hole of the Left.
DeleteShea's position is that people who loudly shout that they like abortions and think more women should have them are in fact only forced into this statement by economic factors or are just misled from the Gospel message (probably by the MAGA cult!)
DeleteOn the other hand even if someone repeatedly says that the death penalty should be used only in limited circumstances but that it is not inherently against Catholic teaching, Shea's position is that that person is frothing at the mouth with the thought of getting to execute as many people as quickly as possible.
The whole "we shouldn't punish women who have abortions" argument is hard to square with the fact that abortion is murder and that all (well, most) other murderers in our society are punished.
ReplyDeleteMost women who abort their children aren't even aware that their fetus is alive. The vast majority of them are either panicked or emotionally manipulated by the highly effective PR team at Planned Parenthood
DeleteNot buying. Masses of people in this world have sensibilities in a severe state of decay. Others are most adept at lying to themselves. Young women are not immune to either.
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