Overturning Roe

This entry is purely intended as a reminder to readers that the abortion discussion at Loyal to Liberty continues with the addition of two new lengthy comments (double posted under the thread) by Chiu Chunling.

On one side of the question we have Dr. Keyes who disparages the states' rights argument because it allows for the continuation of the legal practice of abortion in America. On the other side we have Chiu Chunling who denies the validity of the federal argument because it ... allows for the continuation of the federally mandated legal practice of abortion in America. (I hope my summation of the argument is factually correct.)

This is such an important and thought provoking discussion, and given that it has moved several posts down the page both at Loyal to Liberty and with my reference to it here, that I'm going to do that which I normally wouldn't do, which is to say I'm going to jump through a couple of unnecessary hoops in order to embed, in the following words -- a direct link to the entry in question.

End of initial entry.

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Sarah Palin, Down's Syndrome, and Traditionalism

(Note: Be sure to read Nora's excellent comments to this entry where she lays out a few of her own theories on why modern women advocate abortion, and why men do nothing about it. Also that feminism is more responsible for our decline than all the other destructive isms.)

With all that's been said across the traditionalist blogosphere about Sarah Palin's selection as McCain's running mate, one point of view is particularly bothersome.

Over at VA's some of the (presumably "Traditionalist") commenters to her entry The Shameless Left are saying that it's a woman's choice (you know, "a woman's right to choose" applied selectively) whether or not to allow a Down's baby to live. Commenter Rollory even goes so far as to assert that based on the fact that the parents of Down's children "created" the child, then they should have power over such baby's life. This, my friends, is the antithesis of traditionalist American conservatism. I have to wonder from whence these people (originally) hail.

I for one hope beyond hope that Mrs. Palin never considered it her choice to terminate her pregnancy. As mere human beings who have no power to "create" life, we definately have no power to extinguish it on a presumed right of choice. A human baby is not a physical structure that we've "created" with our own hands, for goodness sakes! If you want to exercise your choice to destroy such a structure, none of the rest of us has any say in the matter. But engaging in sexual intercourse is not the same thing as creating life. If you believe it is then your worldview is definitely not traditionalist.

This idea about the sacredness of life is one of the fundamentals of genuine traditionalism.

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Obama used Partial Birth procedure to eliminate the possibility of Partial Birth survivors

Here's a VFR discussion that I've been following with interest the last couple of days. LA's parenthetical note at the top of the entry pretty much sums up what the discussion entails. But there are a couple of things that I should like to point out. First, in Brandon F.'s initial reply to the article, he states the following:

According to this, while in the Illinois Senate Obama voted against a bill that required health care professionals to give care to babies born alive when a partial birth abortion went "wrong". [emphasis added] So if mommy wants the baby dead, the baby dies no matter what. That is beyond despicable, it's pure evil. McCain might be an irascible gremlin but I don't think he has ever exhibited such moral depravity in his legislative career.

But later on in the discussion Stephen R. puts Obama's position on abortion in these terms:

You wrote:

"As for Obama's vote, how many thousands of Democrats in state legislatures, how many Democrats in the U.S. Congress, have taken similar stands?"

I would like to know the answer to that question, but it must be publicized that it was only because of Barack Obama that a bill to save born alive babies did not make it out of committee in Illinois. [emphasis added]

In 2003 a committee member sponsored an amendment that would adopt the exact same language in Illinois's proposed BAIPA (Born Alive) bill that U.S. Sen. Boxer was satisfied did not curtail any abortion rights in the federal BAIPA. But as chairman, Obama unilaterally killed the bill by never allowing a committee vote, thereby preventing it from being voted on by the full Senate and becoming law. And in 2001 Obama was the only senator to speak against a bill, arguing that extending life protection to any 'preterm babies' could jeopardize abortion rights.

I much appreciate your insights about how this issue relates to the unprincipled exception, but Obama should not get away with being an order of magnitude more malevolent than the average pro-abortion rights person.

At some point in reading the discussion I realized that Brandon's initial complaint had to do with Obama's position on partial birth abortions "gone wrong." This caused me to wonder whether Obama's position might be that saving, or attempting to save infants who'd somehow managed to survive the horrible procedure of partial birth abortion which had "gone wrong", would be the greater evil.

When we consider what partial birth abortion actually is, difficult and painful as this must be for anyone possessing anything close to common morals, then this should give us some indication as to what a survivor of partial birth abortion gone wrong would be generally. But according to Stephen's account, Obama was solely responsible for killing a bill intended to save "born alive" babies. A "born alive" baby I would take to mean a baby who may or may not have been mutilated by the awful procedure of partial birth abortion. So according to Stephen's wording, there seems to be no distinction made between a survivor of partial birth abortion initiated but gone wrong, and a born alive baby who it was intended would be aborted by partial birth procedure but which, for whatever reason, avoided the mutilation of partial birth abortion altogether. In other words, a healthy viable normal baby born whole and complete and unmutilated despite its mother's and the doctor's intent to murder it half born.

Is this the way it is; is there no distinction made between a doctor mutilated born alive baby and an unmutilated born alive baby? Is this what Brandon meant when he said that "if mommy wants the baby dead, it dies no matter what?" Is this the reality of Obama's position?

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Test your knowledge on Roe

Our friends at CitizenLink would like to know what you know about Roe.


Devon Williams writes:

At what stage of pregnancy can a woman have an abortion under Roe v. Wade? Does Roe allow late-term abortions? What percentage of abortions are performed because of rape or incest?

Jan. 22 marks the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton — the two U.S. Supreme Court rulings that legalized abortion. But how much do Americans really know about the landmark rulings that have been responsible for the deaths of more than 45 million preborn babies?

There is a link provided in the CitizenLink article where you may test your knowledge of Roe.

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