Thursday, May 17, 2012

So Is Abortion A Right Or Not?

We’re told abortion is a right. It’s no big deal. You’re just removing a collection of cells. . . a tumor. And to force a woman to have a child she doesn’t want is an outrage! It’s a violation of her human rights! Right? Then why do liberals want to restrict abortion now in certain cases?

The liberal position on abortion has been that abortion is a right. Indeed, they’ve argued since the 1960s that abortion is both a fundamental human right and an absolute right guaranteed under the Constitution. And when something is a right, that means you can exercise it without permission because if you needed the government’s permission to exercise a right, then it wouldn’t be a right, it would be a privilege which could be revoked at any time.

So riddle me this. How do we square the liberal position that abortion is a right with the newly-developing liberal position that women must be stopped from aborting fetuses for sex-selection reasons? Here’s the deal:

When people are given the chance to abort their babies, they do so for a variety of reasons. Those reasons include prejudices, like the preference for boys. This has been going on in China and India and other parts of Asia for decades now and has resulted in millions of missing girls. In China alone, 40 million women are missing from the current generation. That means there are 40 million men who will never find wives because they simply don’t exist because they were aborted. (LINK)

Well, now it’s happening in Canada and probably the United States. Indeed, many of these dirty foreigners who have come to these enlightened lands of abortion have apparently not given up their evil ways. Thus, a recent study in Canada found that while the ratio of first born children in Canada’s immigrant population was similar to what nature creates, the second child skewed significantly toward males and third children skew overwhelmingly toward males. In response, Canada made it illegal to obtain an abortion if the reason is sex selection -- otherwise there are no limits on abortion in Canada. The Economist and many liberal groups are now urging a similar law in the United States to prevent those dirty Canadians from sneaking across our borders to have illegal abortions. Oh the irony.

Think about this. If abortion is a right and you can have it for any reason, then how can the government decide that you can’t have one if you are trying to off a girl? Does this make sense to you? Either abortion is a right or it is not, and if the government is going to tell you that you can have an abortion for any reason whatsoever except reasons they don’t like, then it’s not really a right anymore, is it? And if forcing a woman to have an unwanted child is akin to slavery, as many liberals have argued, how is it any less slavery just because you don't want them to get rid of girls? Is there really "good slavery"?

The reality is that liberals don’t see abortion as a right, they see it as a tool for social engineering to help women economically. And when that goal clashes with other liberal social engineering goals, abortion must give way to the cause. Maybe, it’s time we called them on this and demanded that they clarify how this can be a right if they can restrict it when they don’t like how it gets used?

Moreover, perhaps it’s time to point out other problems with abortion to our liberal friends to split their coalition. For example, as I told you a long time ago, once science locates the gay gene, that will be the end of gays because the combination of abortion plus being able to identify gay children will mean parents will eradicate gay children. Other traits will probably follow as well as we learn to identify unwanted traits. Perhaps we should ask gays how they feel about this?

Similarly, I suspect that blacks will soon catch on that they are the biggest victims of abortion. There have been 50 million abortions in the US since 1973. And while 60% of those have been whites, blacks are disproportionately more likely to have an abortion. In 2004, for example, there were 50 abortions per 1,000 black women, 28 abortions per 1,000 Hispanic women, and 11 abortions per 1,000 white women. So blacks were five times more likely than whites to be aborted. At some point, blacks will realize what this means and they will call this “genocide.” At that point, it would be easy to see calls to ban abortion for certain ethnic groups, wouldn’t it?

Perhaps the time has come to ask liberals to explain themselves on this issue?

Thoughts?


67 comments:

Patriot said...

Andrew...you hit the nail on the head on this one. Once womyn have the "choice" to abort their child, then they will abort for whatever reason they want. Look at now when the father (sperm donor) is nowhere near the decision by an individual womyn to abort someone who is a product of TWO people, not just the womyn's.

Abortion has long been the example of the old Pandoras Box fable. Be careful what you wish for. When liberals made abortion a constitutional "right" then our society had to address all the issues that come with that government sanctioned right. Just like the liberals "safe (something?) and rare" they can profess to be for a womyn's right to choose as long as the government pays for it. If a womyn can't afford an abortion then she wouldn't have one, ergo, every womyn must have access to state funded abortion dollars.

Once the "black community" realizes what this government has done to their race here in America, it won't be pretty. Your stats are damning and need to be mentioned whenever abortion on demand raises its evil head.

More people need to understand the history of population control by the "progressives" throughout recent history (the last 200 years). Very ugly and downright evil.

tryanmax said...

I'm a little tired, so this thought isn't quite gelled, but we have concluded before that liberals observe a hierarchy of rights. In a more alert state, I would don my beanie with the red horns and offer a justification using that hierarchy and it would make scary, twisted sense. But instead, I'm just going to look at myself in the mirror and giggle at my devil horns. Hee hee!

DUQ said...

Great thought! So once again liberals demand we concede something which they themselves don't even believe!

AndrewPrice said...

DUQ, Thanks! This honestly hadn't struck me until the other day exactly what this means. It's kind of funny though, how it exposes a key lie at the core of their "thinking."

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, A beanie with red horns? LOL!

This is pretty funny if you think about it and it makes me want to think long and hard about what other "absolute rights" liberals proclaim which aren't really rights at all?

I wonder how we can get this thought out there to trip them up and change the terms of the debate? I wonder if they would even recognize the intellectual problems this causes?

CrisD said...

I know that the liberals insist that woman should get abortions because the men will leave and/or disappoint them. This is the root of feminist thinking on abortion.

I have always perceived, though, that many, many men from all voting sides will choose to have girlfriends have abortions because many, many men simply want to use abortion to "get rid of a problem." In fact, I usually argue to some of my feminist friends that are "theoretically pro-abortion" eg.they would not have one themselves...that they are being duped by men.

Anyway, that is my view. Advice: Ladies! Don't get pregnant without a committed great guy!

AndrewPrice said...

Patriot, The history of population control by liberals is shocking. Not only does it include mass murder its socialist form, but it also includes forced relocation, eugenics, abortion, and human experimentation right here in the old US of A.

I think these statistics and this thought that they don't actually see abortion as a right would probably shake the liberal world to its core if we could get the liberal MSM to start talking about them. It would separate feminists from blacks and from reasonable people everywhere. That would shatter the coalition they've built up. I wonder how we get this information out there?

AndrewPrice said...

Cris, I suspect the reality is that more men than women want abortion because it is an easy way to slide out from under responsibility. If you get a woman pregnant and you don't want to be hounded for money or shamed into taking care of the child and the woman, what better way than to make something like abortion "normal" and "easy"? Then it almost becomes the woman who is being unreasonable if she decides to keep the child. And when she does abort the child, she's the one who has to deal with the emotional consequences, not the man.

But this is how feminism has always blown up on women. Indeed, you couldn't have designed a better "movement" for the exploitation of women:

1. You teach women that they should behave like men when it comes to sex. Winner = men.

2. You tell women that birth control is their "right" (read: duty). Winner = men.

3. You divorce the relationship between fathers and the children, unless the father chooses to "exercise his rights." Winner = men.

4. You force women into economic mode. But emotionally, most women still hand over their money to their boyfriends or husbands. Winner = men.

5. You give easy divorces, which men are much more likely to use. Winner = men.

I see nowhere that women win this, except in the addition of some minor freedoms to "do male things" at the margin.

They would have been much better to simply open the jobs market and leave the rest alone.

Doc Whoa said...

Excellent insight! I can't wait to suggest this to my liberal friends. I'll bet thier eyes glaze over and they grit their teeth and then they'll tell me "that's different."

AndrewPrice said...

Doc, My honest guess is that this will simply pass in one ear and out the other. It will go into their "danger: paradox, do not process" folder and they will just tell you: "of course abortion is a right, but we can't let this happen."

Doc Whoa said...

Excellent breakdown of the effects of feminism too. When you put it like that, it sounds like something a bunch of jerk men set up to exploit women! Wow. Gloria Steinem must be proud -- (assuming she was bright enough to figure this out).

Tennessee Jed said...

very interesting article and comments. I wholeheartedly agree with the statement that liberal feminists see abortion as a tool to help females economically. I suspect most actually believe it IS also a right, but have not thought through all the uninintended consequences such as the conundrum posed with preferences. Just as with stem cells, in vitro, cloning, etc., there is a very steep and slippery slope lurking nearby

AndrewPrice said...

Doc, That's been the practical effect of what they've done. And the most bizarre aspect of each change was that it was something feminists demanded on behalf of women and they acted like men would hate and oppose the change, even though the reality is that this is exactly the type of thing less-scrupulous males would love.

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, By and large, the abortion issue doesn't excite me. I can see reasons for and reasons against. But one thing which absolutely troubles me is the consequences of combining abortion with the genetic knowledge we are gaining today. I am very much concerned that we are headed into a period of significant "human engineering" and the consequences of that could be truly disastrous in a myriad of ways -- the gender imbalance being just one example.

Plus, I have to say I enjoy pointing out the hypocrisy here. And of course, I would like to open the eyes of the left that many of their policies are causing them all kinds of nasty unintended consequences.

Tennessee Jed said...

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1256&context=wmjowl&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Dliberal%2520position%2520that%2520aborting%2520for%2520sex%2520preference%2520must%2520be%2520banned%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D8%26ved%3D0CGAQFjAH%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fscholarship.law.wm.edu%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D1256%2526context%253Dwmjowl%26ei%3DpBW1T8TYO4WE8QThgeH2Dw%26usg%3DAFQjCNFuSmznhf8AN5wJNhM1eyXZW9LEYQ#search=%22liberal%20position%20aborting%20sex%20preference%20must%20banned%22

Tennessee Jed said...

The attached is a pdf file for an interesting article on this topic from William & Mary. It may not be "linkable" in the traditional sense, but when I googled liberal position on abortion for sex preference, Commentarama came up first (yeah) and this came up about third :)

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, Here's the link in any event: LINK

I've skimmed the article, it's interesting... though it very much reads like a law review article. LOL!

ellenB said...

I find it frustrating that feminists proclaim that they want choices for women and then they get bent out of shape if women make "the wrong choice." Their war on mothers needs to stop.

On the question of whether abortion is a right or not, I don't think it should be, but I still find what you point out to be quite telling. Clearly, liberals don't see it as a right either.

Unknown said...

All liberals and abortion advocates must attend at least two semesters at the Humpty Dumpty School of Language Skills, followed by two more at the Mad Hatter's School of Logic. If you haven't taken these courses, it's obvious why you don't understand either their words or their reasoning.

rlaWTX said...

If the sex selection abortions were in favor of girls, this would not be an issue for liberals. It's only because boys are "chosen", that the "choice" comes into question.

Women think that they are "winners" in the divorce/child support race. Really no one wins. The children suffer. Women suffer. Men who want to be dads suffer. OK, cads win.
Same winner in the "problem pregnancy" race. Children die. Women suffer. Men with consciences suffer. Cads win.

rlaWTX said...

ellenB: I saw this on Breitbart yesterday -

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/05/16/Womens-Group-Makes-New-Ad-Against-Obama-Bureau-of-Womanhood-Conformity

(yeah, I can't link in html; sorry)

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, I have not attended that school which explains why I can't process this paradox! LOL! I wonder if the course is available online?

ellenB said...

rla, I hadn't seen that. Thanks! :)

AndrewPrice said...

rlaWTX, That is exactly the problem. The only winner in the divorce/child support/abortion/weakening of marriage game has been cads -- and whatever the female version of a cad is. It has made it very easy for the disreputable to ply their trade without sanction. And everyone else has paid the price.

And you're right, if the sex selection had been in favor of girls, then I suspect the feminists would be cheering about how this meant more power for women. But since it is boys, they hate it.

I think it's a disaster in the making and it doesn't matter to me if it's boys or girls, either way it's wrong.

AndrewPrice said...

rlaWTX, Here's your link: LINK

That's pretty funny. Obama really does have a problem with women right now.

ellenB said...

I just saw that Donna Summer died. I loved her music! RIP

Feminists said...

Stop trying to understand our beliefs! Just accept them. Pay no attention to the glaring inconsistencies!

Ed said...

Andrew, You've shaken my brain this fine morning. LOL! I had not put this together before. And I certainly had no idea that abortion is worse for blacks. I wonder if Al Sharpton knows this?

Ed said...

As for tryanmax's beanie, I like to think my horns are natural. LOL!

AndrewPrice said...

Ellen, I just read that. She was definitely the queen of disco. RIP

AndrewPrice said...

Feminists don't worry, they're impossible to understand in any event. Shouldn't you be out protesting some natural occurrence?

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, It's good to stretch your brain now and then. That keeps it limber which prevents injury when confronted with a math problem. ;)

tryanmax said...

rlaWTX, thanks for sharing. That's a brilliant ad and Republican and conservative groups need to produce more like it. It needs to be burned down to 60 seconds, though, but the high production value and creativity can really pull people in and resonate with them. I like the "Womanhood Denied" thing. Very clever.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, Ads have been a real weakness for conservatives and Republicans. I am thrilled to see that they have finally gotten better about it in the past couple years. But before that, they were just atrocious. In fact, if I had a say, I would fire everyone who has ever worked for them in the ad department and start fresh.

Ed said...

Andrew and tryanmax, Republic ads are aweful. They are mainly obscure, timid and preaching to the choir. I'm glad they're getting better, but they're still pathetic.

rlaWTX said...

OT: MSM - a quote from Jonah Goldberg at NRO made me laugh...

"But as a generalization, the mainstream media are so deep in the bunker for Obama, they could ride out a nuclear war without having their Jenga tower fall over."

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, That's been my feeling too. They do a lot of preaching to the choir in their ads. And when they do strike out at the other side, they often hit obscure topics no one cares about.

AndrewPrice said...

rlaWTX, That's pretty funny! And it's true, which is why it amazes me that cracks are beginning to show in the MSM wall. I think they are evidence of extreme frustration with Obama.

ScyFyterry said...

LOL! Once again, liberals come up short in the consistency and logic department. Someone should go post a link to this as Huffpo. The million damning attacks they make might be fun to read.

ScyFyterry said...

Also, what do you think of Romeny refusing to use the Rev. Wright stuff against Obama?

AndrewPrice said...

Terry, It would be interesting to see how they respond. I would bet it would just be a lot of attacks against me without ever addressing the obvious problem in their argument. In fact, I doubt any of them would try to reconcile the two except to say that both are important.

AndrewPrice said...

I think Romney is being brilliant on the Rev. Wright thing. This is what he did in the primaries. He would take the high road and state that he's not going to climb down into the weeds and he would even say that he doesn't back those who would raise the issue. Then his "outside" supporters would blast away on the issue. That way the issue gets a lot of play and he looks like the good guy.

And note the difference with McCain -- McCain would have defended Obama and just blasted anyone who brought up the issue. Romney used very technical speak to "repudiate" "the strategy". He never defended Obama or said the ads were wrong. He just said he wants to focus on the economy. Smart move.

Notawonk said...

"Perhaps the time has come to ask liberals to explain themselves on this issue?"

OH,HOHOHA! I can't wait. Matter of fact, let me get the snacks, as we pull up the chairs to this show. ~please tell me there will be hand-puppets~

AndrewPrice said...

Patti, There would need to be hand-puppets. How else could they follow the argument? ;)

Seriously, could you imagine what would happen if this sort of information hit the liberal hive-consciousness? First, they would try to get us with the idea that if they could just get rid of us, the argument would go away. Then they would wonder how we are lying. Finally, they would be left with this gaping chasm in their minds which they might not be able to ignore. I see lots of them short circuiting.

That would totally be worth the price of admission.

CrispyRice said...

Really interesting, as always Andrew. I wonder how many liberals realize this?

AndrewPrice said...

My guess would be very few, Crispy. My guess is that most liberals simply accept both positions without collating their thoughts. So they don't ever see the contradiction.

Koshcat said...

Another problem that most liberals have is understanding how to get to their utopian world. Let me give an example. When a woman comes in for an abortion, how will you KNOW it is for sex selection and not due to economic issues? Do you beat it out of her? Lie detector? Kill any living son now or in the future? All of their "ideas" require forcing others to comply. Capitalism can be a hard bitch, but overall is rewards good economic choices and punishes bad ones.

AndrewPrice said...

Koshcat, Very, very true. That's another serious flaw in much of liberalism and with this issue.

In fact, several countries ban abortion for purposes of sex selection. These countries include India... which has one of the worst sex selection levels in the world. The parents go in to get an ultra sound to "make sure the baby is healthy." Then, when they know the sex, they go to a different abortion doctor and claim they have no idea what sex the child is. There's really no way to stop that.

Canada also bans sex selection as a reason for abortion, yet it keeps happening according to this study. They are trying to blame US clinics, but that's laughable. That's what liberals always do -- blame someone else for undermining their utopia. The reality is that every abortion doctor in the world could agree to follow this rule and it wouldn't change a thing. But liberals don't understand that because they think once something is put in law, it will achieve it's purpose no matter what. It's idiotic.

tryanmax said...

Even though it's a woman's choice, I'm sure men are somehow to blame for the skewed sex selection. Well, maybe not, because that would reveal that abortion is a tool of exploitation. Hmm, that's a toughy. But then, why are all these women so misogynist? Better not to ask questions and just ban sex-selective abortions.

Now if we could just locate that pesky conservative gene...

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, That is why they always frame the argument in terms of "backwards cultures" because it makes it easier to believe that the preference for boys is something they can one day eradicate with re-education.

The problem is that even in countries like the US, there is a preference for boys. And if you want the most telling proof, look at crossdressing. You will find lots of female impersonators (whose audiences are packed with women, not gay males) and but almost no male impersonators. Similarly, it's considered shameful for a boy to dress like a girl, but nobody really worries about a girl dressing like a boy. What is the difference? The difference is that society continues to view males as being of more value than females. Thus when a boy turns himself into a girl, it is considered taboo and exciting because he has given up his status. But the same is not true of girls turning themselves into boys because there is no similar sense that the girl has "lowered" herself.

The underlying basis of this is the difference in value we place on men and women. Indeed, it's the same reason we get a kick out of seeing rich people brought down but we get inspired by seeing poor people rise up -- because we are focusing on the change in value we assign to the person.

If society viewed men and women as equal, then there would be no thrill out of female impersonators, nor would it be considered embarrassing for males to be more feminine.

Feminists try to dismiss this as somehow a defect in the male psyche, but the truth is both sexes recognize the loss of status. And that is because we still view males as more valuable that females.

ScyFyterry said...

Andrew, I agree with you about Romney. The issue is out there and it's being discussed and someone will keep beating the drum, but Obama gets to look like he's above it.

ScyFyterry said...

Andrew, You find the strangest ways to dissect what people are really thinking. I can't disagree with your conclusion at all - in fact, it's strangely brilliant - but I would never have thought of it. How the heck do you spot things like this?

Koshcat said...

How did we get into cross dressing here?

Everybody is probably worrying too much about this anyway. As soon as war breaks out, and it likely will between India and China, then this imbalance will be brought back into line.

Personally, I wouldn't give up my little girl for a boy (fortunately I already have one of each). She is wonderful and definitely will take care of me when I am old and disabled.

AndrewPrice said...

Terry, I look for clues about human nature everywhere. Always ask yourself what is really going on in the background of people's thoughts. Why do they like certain things and not others. Heck, you want a real study of how humans make decision, spend some time at the grocery store and watch people shop. You would be amazed what you can learn.

AndrewPrice said...

Koshcat, The conversation often wanders around here.

I have no preference either when it comes to kids, but I do think it's sick that someone would kill one of them in the hopes of getting one of a different sex.

DUQ said...

Did you see that Biden's motorcade caused yet another injury?

Also, I agree with you about Romney so long as he doesn't try to stop others from talking about it. From what I've seen he hasn't done that. But it does have echoes of McCain being unwilling to attack Obama.

Elite Harvard Professors said...

Now Andrew

Your article is just so pedestrian .....

You use such plebian style common sense arguments that in the end just don't get the nuance of why sex selection is wrong. In the end the misogynistic meme that would allow one to abort based on gender preference is in its own way doing more to enslave women.

We should ban abortions based on gender preference and how do we know when someone is aborting a fetus based on gender preference. We who study these things at Harvard will tell you so.....

AndrewPrice said...

DUQ, Biden is a traffic menace.

We'll have to wait and see how the Romney thing turns out, but so far his pattern has been pretty clear -- he refused to get into the mud and says he wants to talk economics while his friends smear away.

I doubt this will be any different, but we'll see.

AndrewPrice said...

Dear Elite Harvard Professors (or it is "Lite Harvard Professors"?)

Plebeian common sense! LOL! Yep. This is an argument meant for fly-over country and reality, not for the hallowed ivory halls of Doublespeakia.

But in any event, I agree with you that we should ban abortion based on gender selection. And probably more too.

Ed said...

DUQ and Andrew, I have faith in Romney because he hasn't failed to attack Obama over anything yet. And I think if he'd climbed down personally into the mud on this, then that's all anyone would have talked about. Now, rather than having racist Romney v. angelic Obama, you have Obama flailing around fighting with unnamed PACs while Romney looks presidential.

Elite Harvard Professors said...

Hey?!

Wait...... oh!

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, That's true. I just got an e-mail from Obama actually (I'm on his list) where he's struggling to connect the Wright attack to Romney and just can't do it. He's making these statements about how these racist organizations are trying to do this to support Romney etc. etc. please call Romney and tell him to stop them before they do this.

Give me a break. That won't work. Too many steps.

AndrewPrice said...

LOL! Yeah, Team Harvard, you're on the wrong side of your own argument. LOL!

Anonymous said...

Andrew, add to what you mentioned about sex-selection the fact that during the young years, the common way that guys insult a guy to simply get him pissed off is to refer to him with innuendos that imply him effeminate or homosexual.

I have also wondered too, ever since I saw the sex-selective pattern in China and India, if you could see a gender imbalance coming to a country near you sometime soon. Again, it worries me, mainly because of the alleged association between violent crime and such an imbalance in China and India.

Anonymous said...

Ed, totally agree, if anything, the whole race issue is Obama's big bait on a fishing line. If Romney keeps focused on the issues, with a little more word on foreign policy, he could keep the whole matter on top of the game.

AndrewPrice said...

obiwan, That's true too. There is a lot of evidence on that account.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the Nordic countries where abortion for sex selection reasons is considered a right. If they end up with an imbalance, then anyone will.

AndrewPrice said...

Obiwan, By the way, I've seen a lot of discussion of the distorted sex ratios possibly leading to a war between India and China at some point.

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