From Big Blue Wave
I've always hated that slogan.
Because it presumes that women must always be trusted. And if you question it, you somehow don't trust women. Which, of course, is a farce.
New York Magazine has an interesting article about the struggling pro-abortion movement in the US.
It depicts a counselling session involving a woman who already has three children and is aborting this child because her boyfriend doesn't want any more kids. The counsellor, Claire Keyes, is not happy about having to deal with this situation.
Keyes gestures toward the waiting room, where the patient’s boyfriend is sitting. “Is he an important part of your life?”
The woman hesitates. “I guess. For now.”
“He doesn’t have kids?”
“He’s got kids. He just don’t want any more.”
Keyes pauses. “I don’t feel you in this decision, and that makes me sad.” She thinks. “If you had to name a percentage—pick a number—what percentage of your decision to be here today is yours?”
The woman stares into space. “Basically, 99 percent of it is him.” She looks listlessly at Keyes. “So. Get it done and over with.”
Keyes gently returns her look. “We have a saying around here: We don’t do abortions for boyfriends.”
The woman is silent for several long, drawn-out seconds. Then, she offers something. “But see, that’s where it comes down to my percent. I have three kids already. So, he leaves, and now I have four children and no dads.”
A few minutes later, we leave the room. Keyes is shaking. I start to ask her a question, but she cuts me off. “Do I feel good about signing this? ***, no.” She wipes her eyes. “And I could deny her. We do deny women abortions.”
Deny women abortions?
Wha...? What about...Trust women?
You mean some women shouldn't have abortions?
Some women don't know what's best for themselves?
Some women make dumb decisions and should be stopped from following through?
Why that's positively paternalistic!
Clearly this woman does not want an abortion. She has been deprived of support. The abortion is so easy. There's obviously a lot going on in her life that needs fixing--it doesn't take a genius to see that. She's desperate to hold on to this man-- for the sake of the kids. I understand that, I'm a mom, I'd want help around the house, too if I were single. Like any typical mom, she thinks about everyone else before she thinks of herself. And herself would rather not have this abortion.
But when pro-lifers create pregnancy centres precisely to bring out these marginalized feelings of ambivalent women, we're accused of being tyrannical misogynists bent on controlling women's reproductive lives.
See, you have to trust women. Except when you're pro-choice. Then you can doubt women. Trust them to go to the abortion clinic. Don't trust them to go to the Pregnancy Centre. Argue for choice, but don't help them really choose. Empower them to have abortions, but don't empower them to carry pregnancies to term.
This is why we equate pro-choice with "pro-abortion".
_____________________________________________________
Excellent insight on why the proaborts hate CPCs so much. As I have said many times here, the proaborts aren't fighting for our right to give birth-WE ALREADY HAVE THAT RIGHT. The only thing they are fighting to protect is their right to murder. As I have also said many times here, feminists don't even trust women to be strong enough to love their own children. They objectify children by making them property to be disposed of and objectify themselves by making themselves sexually available to whoever, whenever. Feminism is the biggest FAIL of all time-bad for women and deadly to children.
Monday, November 30, 2009
The 'Manhattan Declaration': The Manifesto That's Shaking America
via Catholic Online
It's been endorsed by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox leaders, united in defending life and the family. With the White House in the crosshairs.
Among the religious leaders who presented the appeal to the public on Friday, November 20, at the National Press Club in Washington (in the photo), were the archbishop of Philadelphia, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the archbishop of Washington, Donald W. Wuerl, and the bishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the news passed almost without notice: the news about a strong public appeal in defense of life, of marriage, of religious freedom and objection of conscience, launched jointly – a rarity – by top-level representatives of the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches, the Anglican Communion, and the Evangelical communities of the United States.
Among the religious leaders who presented the appeal to the public on Friday, November 20, at the National Press Club in Washington (in the photo), were the archbishop of Philadelphia, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the archbishop of Washington, Donald W. Wuerl, and the bishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput.
And among the 52 first signatories of the appeal were 11 other Catholic archbishops and bishops of the United States: Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit, Timothy Dolan of New York, John J. Myers of Newark, John Nienstedt of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix, Michael J. Sheridan of Colorado Springs, Salvatore J. Cordileone of Oakland, Richard J. Malone of Portland, and David A. Zubik of Pittsburgh.
The 4700-word appeal is entitled "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience," and takes its name from the area of New York in which its publication was discussed and decided last September.
The final drafting of the text was entrusted to Robert P. George, a Catholic professor of law at Princeton University, and to Evangelical Protestants Chuck Colson and Timothy George, the latter a professor at the Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.
The other signers include Metropolitan Jonah Paffhausen, primate of the Orthodox Church in America, archpriest Chad Hatfield of the Orthodox seminary of Saint Vladimir, Reverend William Owens, president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, and two leading figures of the Anglican Communion: Robert Wm. Duncan, primate of the Anglican Church in North America, and Peter J. Akinola, primate of the Anglican Church in Nigeria.
Apart from the bishops, the other Catholics who signed the appeal include Jesuit Fr. Joseph D. Fessio, a disciple of Joseph Ratzinger and founder of the publisher Ignatius Press, William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, Jody Bottum, editor of the magazine "First Things," and George Weigel, a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
The "Manhattan Declaration" has not emerged in a vacuum, but at a critical moment for American society and politics: precisely while the administration of Barack Obama is pushing hard for passage of a health care reform plan in the United States.
Defending life from the moment of conception and the right to objections of conscience, the appeal contests two of the points endangered by the reform project currently under discussion in the Senate.
In Congress, the danger was averted thanks in part to aggressive lobbying conducted openly by the Catholic episcopate. After the final vote had guaranteed both the right to objections of conscience and the blocking of any public financing for abortion, the bishops' conference hailed this result as a "success." But now the battle has started all over again in the Senate, on a working document that the Church again considers unacceptable. The bishops' conference has already sent the senators a letter indicating the changes it would like to see made to all of the points in dispute.
But now there is also the ecumenical "Manhattan Declaration," the last chapter of which, entitled "Unjust Laws," ends with this solemn statement:
"We will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves."
And immediately afterward:
"We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's."
In an initial passage, the appeal also says this:
"While public opinion has moved in a pro-life direction, powerful and determined forces are working to expand abortion, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, and euthanasia."
And it is true. According to the most recent surveys, public opinion in the United States is shifting noticeably toward greater defense of the life of the unborn child.
From 1995 to 2008, all of the research had shown that more people were pro-choice than pro-life, with a significant margin between them: the former at 49 percent, the latter at 42.
Now, instead, the positions have been reversed. The pro-choice have fallen to 46 percent, and the pro-life have risen to 47 percent, overtaking them.
The religious leaders who are pressuring Obama on the minefield of abortion of abortion, of homosexual marriage, of euthanasia, therefore know that they have with them a large and growing segment of American society.
The issuing of the "Manhattan Declaration" has received extensive coverage in the media in the United States, without anyone protesting against this political "interference" by the Churches.
But that's just the way it is in the United States. There has always been a rigorous separation between religion and the state there. There are no concordats, and they're not even conceivable. But this is exactly why the Churches are seen as having the freedom to speak and act in the public sphere.
In Europe, the landscape is very different. Here "secularism" is understood and applied in conflict, either latent or explicit, with the Churches.
This may be another reason for the silence that in Europe, in Italy, in Rome, greeted the "Manhattan Declaration." It is held to be a typically American phenomenon, foreign to the European way of thinking.
A similar difference in approach concerns the denial of Eucharistic communion for pro-abortion Catholic politicians. In the United States, this controversy is extremely heated, while on the other side of the Atlantic it isn't. This difference in sensibilities also divides the hierarchy of the Catholic Church: in Europe and in Rome the question is practically ignored, left to the individual conscience.
But it most be noted out that something is changing on this point, even on the Old Continent. And not only because there is a pope like Benedict XVI, who has stated that he prefers the American model of relations between Church and state.
A sign of this came a few days ago from Spain, where the Catholic Church is grappling with an ideologically hostile government, that of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which is preparing a law that would liberalize abortion even more than it is now.
According to reports from sources including "L'Osservatore Romano," the secretary general of the Spanish bishops' conference, Bishop Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, did not hesitate to advise Catholic politicians that, if they vote in favor of the law, they will not be admitted to Eucharistic communion, because they will have placed themselves in an objective situation of "public sin."
Not only that. Bishop Martínez Camino added that those who maintain that it is morally legitimate to kill an unborn child put themselves in contradiction with the Catholic Church, and thus risk falling into heresy and into "latae sententiae,' or automatic, excommunication.
It is the first time that words so "American" have been heard from the leadership of a bishops' conference in Europe.
The Feminine Mistake
More on why Radical Feminism should be rejected-its anti-men, anti-family, anti-children, anti-life.
via American Thinker
The philosophical basis of Hegelian/Marxist philosophy is not only antithetical to the family, but irreconcilable with the rights of women everywhere. The philosophy is at its core misogynist. Hitching the feminist wagon to Marxism was and is the feminine mistake. In this article, I will dig deeply into the Marxist notions about women, the family, and the workplace. As I will show, Marxism and the far left are not female friendly.
First, a little history: Betty Friedan (1921-2006) is often cited as the pioneer of the modern women's rights movement. Friedan co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. Her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, is credited with launching radical feminism in America. What is not often discussed is how entrenched this movement was in the radical left and international communism.
Friedan was active in the labor movement and toyed with communism in her youth [i]. As she grew older (and wiser), Friedan pulled away from the main argument of The Feminine Mystique (which was based on the flimsy -- and superficially Marxist -- idea that women should be free to abandon the home and move into the workplace). Friedan's The Second Stage (1981) backtracks, somewhat, from her adolescent misreading of Marxist philosophy that grounded the earlier The Feminine Mystique.
The works of French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) greatly influenced Friedan's writing. In fact, The Second Stage mimics the title of de Beauvoir's two-volume work, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949). Friedan once stated of de Beauvoir:
I had learned my own existentialism from her. It was The Second Sex that introduced me to that approach to reality and political responsibility ... [and] led me to whatever original analysis of women's existence I have been able to contribute.
Simone de Beauvoir was a brilliant woman and a gifted mathematician. She was also a devoted admirer of both Hegel and Marx. Thus, de Beauvoir was a hard-core leftist [ii]. Her writings on feminism are filled with the typical Marxist rhetoric of class identity and economic struggle against the male-dominated "bourgeoisie."
Like most leading French intellectuals of the time, de Beauvoir was influenced by the lectures and unpublished writings of Alexandre Kojève [iii]. It is by reviewing certain portions of the works of the Hegelian/Marxist Kojève that we will be able to vividly see the feminine mistake.
Alexandre Kojève (1902-1968) was a world-class thinker -- undoubtedly one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. His influence on intellectuals in Europe (and to some extent, in the U.S.) was enormous.
Kojève published few of his manuscripts during his lifetime. His work was so honest, and his views so explosive, that he avoided directly expressing his ideology to the general public [iv].
Kojève did not hesitate in his work to disclose to us what Hegel and Marx really thought about women. Both Hegel and Marx grounded their philosophical theories in Hegel's infamous master/slave dialectic. Kojève explained the essence of the master/slave dialectic in a lecture on Hegel (see Note iii below) in 1939:
Man is desire directed toward another desire -- that is, desire for recognition -- that is, negating action preformed for the sake of satisfying this desire for recognition -- that is, bloody fighting for prestige -- that is, the relation between master and slave -- that is, work -- that is, historical evolution that finally comes to the universal and homogenous state and to the absolute knowledge that reveals complete man realized in and by this state. [Emphasis added.]
In other words, men become self-conscious and fully human by subjugating other men. This historical process of certain classes of men enslaving other classes of men eventually ends in the "universal and homogenous state" when all men are either (depending on one's perspective) "free and equal" or enslaved to a monolithic one-world government.
Kojève's studies of Hegel and Marx taught Kojève that only men could participate in this struggle. (Man in the passage above means "male human being," not "any human being.")
Kojève explained why only men would attain "absolute knowledge" by serving in a one-world state in his posthumously published Esquisse d'une phenomenology du Droit (Outline of a Phenomenology of Right):
It is because man has already been made human (by the negation of his animal nature through fighting and work) that man also "negates" his animal sexuality and transforms his pairing [with a woman] into a family. It is because he is now a master (of a slave) ... that the man behaves differently [than an animal] towards his woman and becomes a "husband" of a "wife." [Page 486 footnote.]
Two pages later, in another footnote, Kojève clarifies and reemphasizes his position:
The humanization of the wife is mediated by the man (the husband) in the same way as the slave (by working) is made human by the mediation of the master (and through rebellion); this is the basis of the analogy between the wife and the slave.
Women are tied to life. They give us life. They are not inclined to fight and die for recognition or the "struggle" or the revolution -- so according to Kojève, women can never be fully "human."
It gets worse. In another footnote in the same chapter Kojève remarks:
The newly born [son], when assumed to be unable to be humanized, ... may be killed like any animal (and also the daughter -- since she cannot be humanized, humanity being refused to women). [Emphasis added.]
Now you know where the idea of forced abortion comes from in communist China...and why John Holdren, Obama's "science czar," espouses the notion of "compulsory sterilization" and the creation of a "planetary regime" (read: universal and homogenous state) that would control the number of human beings allowed on earth.
The garden-variety (university professor) Marxist will object to Kojève's position, explaining that women will, in the end, be equal to men by working the same jobs as men in the "universal and homogenous state." (Remember, that's the position that Betty Friedan and Simone de Beauvoir both held.) Other faux leftist intellectuals will add that the family is the last great obstacle to attaining universal freedom and equality through labor. Ridding ourselves of the patriarchal family will bring about "happiness" (more accurately, "satisfaction") -- or so we have been told [v].
My response to these café philosophers is this: someone in your perfect state will have to mop the floors, stock the shelves, and work in the assembly lines. I have done all three jobs at various points in my life, and I can assure you that neither "happiness" nor "satisfaction" is a term used by anyone (male or female) performing these mundane tasks.
This pseudo-intellectual phoniness runs rampant through the hard left. Betty Friedan could rant about women getting out of the home and into the workplace because her workplace was Cosmopolitan magazine. Simone de Beauvoir could talk and talk and talk about women as a subjugated class at her numerous lectures and book signing-events (and make a good sum of money while doing it).
Alexandre Kojève was straightforward about the results of what people would really experience in the "universal and homogenous state." In a very famous footnote in his lectures on Hegel, Kojève states:
[The] end of human time or history -- that is, the definitive annihilation of man properly so-called or of the free and historical individual -- means quite simply the cessation of action in the full sense of the term.
Stated differently, in the universal and homogenous state there is no freedom, no choice, just equal (and equally meaningless) work for all.
There is a reason why the left is so dead-set on a woman's "right" to an abortion -- and why the health care bill in the Senate will have the central government pay for this "right." State-controlled abortion moves the left that much closer to eliminating the family and establishing its much-desired universal and homogenous state.
As Alexandre Kojève so bluntly showed us, women who have bought into the radical feminist agenda must eventually trade their freedom for slavery. In his 1939 lecture on Hegel, Kojève stated:
Hegel also sees, and he is the first to say so in so many words, that truly human existence is possible only by the negation of life.... [Emphasis in original.]
In my view, most women are (and should be) above this "Maoist" view of human existence.
Feminism, by grounding itself in the philosophy of Hegel and Marx, is condemning women to a new servitude: slavery to the state. Not to worry, liberated ladies: In the paradise of the universal and homogenous state, you will still be able to mop the floors.
[This article is dedicated to Ann Kucera (1925-2009) of Garland, Maine. Ann was a poet, writer, and, most of all, a dear friend. May her sweet spirit find peace.]
Larrey Anderson is a writer, a philosopher, and submissions editor for American Thinker. He is the author of The Order of the Beloved, and the memoir, Underground: Life and Survival in the Russian Black Market.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i] Daniel Horowitz outlines Friedan's ties to the far left in "Rethinking Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique: Labor Union Radicalism and Feminism in Cold War America," American Quarterly, March 1996. (It is the lead article, if memory serves.)
[ii] She was also the sometime lover of Jean Paul Sartre. She never married and had no offspring.
[iii] It is possible, if not probable, that de Beauvoir attended at least some of Kojève's famous series of lectures on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. The lectures were delivered at the École des Hautes Études from 1933 to 1939. Kojève's classes were frequented by a literal who's-who of leading French intellectuals, including Merleau-Ponty, Raymond Aron, Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, Andre Breton, and Raymond Queneau. Queneau took meticulous notes of the Kojève lectures. The notes were eventually published under the title Introduction à la Lecture de Hegel in 1947. Even Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault were "students" of Kojève. See Stanley Rosen's Hermeneutics as Politics, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 91-110 for details.
[iv] Kojève's stunning masterpiece on the law, Esquisse d' une phenomenology du Droit, was completed in 1943. It remained unpublished until 1982.
[v] As Hegel, Marx, and Kojève all asserted: human beings will be truly "satisfied" only as a result of their labors in a universal and homogenous state. Not happy ... satisfied.
After losing power, Leon Trotsky claimed that the reason communism had not been successful in Russia was that Stalin had not been ruthless enough in his efforts to eliminate the family. See Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed, trans. Max Eastman, New York, 1965, pp. 145ff.
via American Thinker
The philosophical basis of Hegelian/Marxist philosophy is not only antithetical to the family, but irreconcilable with the rights of women everywhere. The philosophy is at its core misogynist. Hitching the feminist wagon to Marxism was and is the feminine mistake. In this article, I will dig deeply into the Marxist notions about women, the family, and the workplace. As I will show, Marxism and the far left are not female friendly.
First, a little history: Betty Friedan (1921-2006) is often cited as the pioneer of the modern women's rights movement. Friedan co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. Her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, is credited with launching radical feminism in America. What is not often discussed is how entrenched this movement was in the radical left and international communism.
Friedan was active in the labor movement and toyed with communism in her youth [i]. As she grew older (and wiser), Friedan pulled away from the main argument of The Feminine Mystique (which was based on the flimsy -- and superficially Marxist -- idea that women should be free to abandon the home and move into the workplace). Friedan's The Second Stage (1981) backtracks, somewhat, from her adolescent misreading of Marxist philosophy that grounded the earlier The Feminine Mystique.
The works of French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) greatly influenced Friedan's writing. In fact, The Second Stage mimics the title of de Beauvoir's two-volume work, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949). Friedan once stated of de Beauvoir:
I had learned my own existentialism from her. It was The Second Sex that introduced me to that approach to reality and political responsibility ... [and] led me to whatever original analysis of women's existence I have been able to contribute.
Simone de Beauvoir was a brilliant woman and a gifted mathematician. She was also a devoted admirer of both Hegel and Marx. Thus, de Beauvoir was a hard-core leftist [ii]. Her writings on feminism are filled with the typical Marxist rhetoric of class identity and economic struggle against the male-dominated "bourgeoisie."
Like most leading French intellectuals of the time, de Beauvoir was influenced by the lectures and unpublished writings of Alexandre Kojève [iii]. It is by reviewing certain portions of the works of the Hegelian/Marxist Kojève that we will be able to vividly see the feminine mistake.
Alexandre Kojève (1902-1968) was a world-class thinker -- undoubtedly one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. His influence on intellectuals in Europe (and to some extent, in the U.S.) was enormous.
Kojève published few of his manuscripts during his lifetime. His work was so honest, and his views so explosive, that he avoided directly expressing his ideology to the general public [iv].
Kojève did not hesitate in his work to disclose to us what Hegel and Marx really thought about women. Both Hegel and Marx grounded their philosophical theories in Hegel's infamous master/slave dialectic. Kojève explained the essence of the master/slave dialectic in a lecture on Hegel (see Note iii below) in 1939:
Man is desire directed toward another desire -- that is, desire for recognition -- that is, negating action preformed for the sake of satisfying this desire for recognition -- that is, bloody fighting for prestige -- that is, the relation between master and slave -- that is, work -- that is, historical evolution that finally comes to the universal and homogenous state and to the absolute knowledge that reveals complete man realized in and by this state. [Emphasis added.]
In other words, men become self-conscious and fully human by subjugating other men. This historical process of certain classes of men enslaving other classes of men eventually ends in the "universal and homogenous state" when all men are either (depending on one's perspective) "free and equal" or enslaved to a monolithic one-world government.
Kojève's studies of Hegel and Marx taught Kojève that only men could participate in this struggle. (Man in the passage above means "male human being," not "any human being.")
Kojève explained why only men would attain "absolute knowledge" by serving in a one-world state in his posthumously published Esquisse d'une phenomenology du Droit (Outline of a Phenomenology of Right):
It is because man has already been made human (by the negation of his animal nature through fighting and work) that man also "negates" his animal sexuality and transforms his pairing [with a woman] into a family. It is because he is now a master (of a slave) ... that the man behaves differently [than an animal] towards his woman and becomes a "husband" of a "wife." [Page 486 footnote.]
Two pages later, in another footnote, Kojève clarifies and reemphasizes his position:
The humanization of the wife is mediated by the man (the husband) in the same way as the slave (by working) is made human by the mediation of the master (and through rebellion); this is the basis of the analogy between the wife and the slave.
Women are tied to life. They give us life. They are not inclined to fight and die for recognition or the "struggle" or the revolution -- so according to Kojève, women can never be fully "human."
It gets worse. In another footnote in the same chapter Kojève remarks:
The newly born [son], when assumed to be unable to be humanized, ... may be killed like any animal (and also the daughter -- since she cannot be humanized, humanity being refused to women). [Emphasis added.]
Now you know where the idea of forced abortion comes from in communist China...and why John Holdren, Obama's "science czar," espouses the notion of "compulsory sterilization" and the creation of a "planetary regime" (read: universal and homogenous state) that would control the number of human beings allowed on earth.
The garden-variety (university professor) Marxist will object to Kojève's position, explaining that women will, in the end, be equal to men by working the same jobs as men in the "universal and homogenous state." (Remember, that's the position that Betty Friedan and Simone de Beauvoir both held.) Other faux leftist intellectuals will add that the family is the last great obstacle to attaining universal freedom and equality through labor. Ridding ourselves of the patriarchal family will bring about "happiness" (more accurately, "satisfaction") -- or so we have been told [v].
My response to these café philosophers is this: someone in your perfect state will have to mop the floors, stock the shelves, and work in the assembly lines. I have done all three jobs at various points in my life, and I can assure you that neither "happiness" nor "satisfaction" is a term used by anyone (male or female) performing these mundane tasks.
This pseudo-intellectual phoniness runs rampant through the hard left. Betty Friedan could rant about women getting out of the home and into the workplace because her workplace was Cosmopolitan magazine. Simone de Beauvoir could talk and talk and talk about women as a subjugated class at her numerous lectures and book signing-events (and make a good sum of money while doing it).
Alexandre Kojève was straightforward about the results of what people would really experience in the "universal and homogenous state." In a very famous footnote in his lectures on Hegel, Kojève states:
[The] end of human time or history -- that is, the definitive annihilation of man properly so-called or of the free and historical individual -- means quite simply the cessation of action in the full sense of the term.
Stated differently, in the universal and homogenous state there is no freedom, no choice, just equal (and equally meaningless) work for all.
There is a reason why the left is so dead-set on a woman's "right" to an abortion -- and why the health care bill in the Senate will have the central government pay for this "right." State-controlled abortion moves the left that much closer to eliminating the family and establishing its much-desired universal and homogenous state.
As Alexandre Kojève so bluntly showed us, women who have bought into the radical feminist agenda must eventually trade their freedom for slavery. In his 1939 lecture on Hegel, Kojève stated:
Hegel also sees, and he is the first to say so in so many words, that truly human existence is possible only by the negation of life.... [Emphasis in original.]
In my view, most women are (and should be) above this "Maoist" view of human existence.
Feminism, by grounding itself in the philosophy of Hegel and Marx, is condemning women to a new servitude: slavery to the state. Not to worry, liberated ladies: In the paradise of the universal and homogenous state, you will still be able to mop the floors.
[This article is dedicated to Ann Kucera (1925-2009) of Garland, Maine. Ann was a poet, writer, and, most of all, a dear friend. May her sweet spirit find peace.]
Larrey Anderson is a writer, a philosopher, and submissions editor for American Thinker. He is the author of The Order of the Beloved, and the memoir, Underground: Life and Survival in the Russian Black Market.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i] Daniel Horowitz outlines Friedan's ties to the far left in "Rethinking Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique: Labor Union Radicalism and Feminism in Cold War America," American Quarterly, March 1996. (It is the lead article, if memory serves.)
[ii] She was also the sometime lover of Jean Paul Sartre. She never married and had no offspring.
[iii] It is possible, if not probable, that de Beauvoir attended at least some of Kojève's famous series of lectures on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. The lectures were delivered at the École des Hautes Études from 1933 to 1939. Kojève's classes were frequented by a literal who's-who of leading French intellectuals, including Merleau-Ponty, Raymond Aron, Jacques Lacan, Georges Bataille, Andre Breton, and Raymond Queneau. Queneau took meticulous notes of the Kojève lectures. The notes were eventually published under the title Introduction à la Lecture de Hegel in 1947. Even Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault were "students" of Kojève. See Stanley Rosen's Hermeneutics as Politics, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 91-110 for details.
[iv] Kojève's stunning masterpiece on the law, Esquisse d' une phenomenology du Droit, was completed in 1943. It remained unpublished until 1982.
[v] As Hegel, Marx, and Kojève all asserted: human beings will be truly "satisfied" only as a result of their labors in a universal and homogenous state. Not happy ... satisfied.
After losing power, Leon Trotsky claimed that the reason communism had not been successful in Russia was that Stalin had not been ruthless enough in his efforts to eliminate the family. See Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed, trans. Max Eastman, New York, 1965, pp. 145ff.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
The Death of Reason is the Death of Man
From Big Blue Wave
(Grab yourself a coffee...this is a long one ;) )
As we marked Remembrance Day this week, my attention turned towards the World War II era and I read up on the scientific racialism that fuelled the Nazis’ killing spree.
We have largely forgotten how widespread and accepted scientific racialism was back in the pre-war era. It was widely assumed that because whites were superior in this or that category, that gave them the right to kill or disrespect inferior peoples.
I’m not so irritated at the racism of the findings—that whites have higher IQ’s and that sort of thing. What grates on my nerves is that no one seemed to question that superiority gave one the right to kill. Even if, for the sake of discussion, you agreed that the Germans needed their Lebenstraum, what right did that give them to kill millions of people? Even if you thought that blacks constituted a threat to the purity of the white race, what right did it give people to lynch them?
There is absolutely no sense of responsibility toward others.
And of course this brings me to the fetal rights debate. You never read of a feminist claiming that a mother has a responsibility towards a fetus. A woman should be able to abort for any reason whatsoever, and no one is allowed to question that decision.
The fetus is a threat after all.
Poor choicers have no interest in that debate about the fetus. For abortionists and hardcore feminists, the fetus is worthy of zero moral consideration. Their allies in the poor choice movement may differ from one degree to another, attributing moral worth to the fetus in some circumstances and not others. A discussion on this matter would be politically fratricidal. Not to mention that it could play into the hands of pro-lifers by raising the status of the fetus, especially in Canada (where he has none). So the poor choice movement will remain officially mum on the fetus, holding to a relativistic position, with all the contradictions that that entails.
Poor choicers will continue to argue against fetal personhood based on the possible negative consequences of according that status. The problem with consequence-based thinking is that it make truth dependent on whether or not you like the results.
That may be a politically viable strategy. But it’s not intellectually honest. After all, even if Blacks had banded together and taken over the US and sullied “white culture”, was that any reason to deny their civil rights? If Jews had been the cause of all of Germany’s ills, would that have justified the Nuremberg Laws?
Of course not.
When you worry too much about consequences, you tend to forget principles. This leads to a mentality of accepting that the ends justify the means.
A lot of the argument about abortion is just that. Poor choicers posit that if pregnant women aren’t allowed to abort, they will be arrested for smoking a cigarette and that will lead to the establishment of the Republic of Gilead.
Let’s just assume for the moment that’s the case.
What right does that give anyone the right to kill their unborn child?
The argument from consequences is easy, because it by-passes the difficult process of actually using one’s reason and formulating principles. I’m not trying to argue that no feminist has an articulate defense for her beliefs beyond the typical pro-abortion slogans. But when you want to mobilize a bunch of people who may not be with you on a philosophical level, the easiest way to do that is by referring to what is concrete—namely potential consequences.
It’s the masses that seem to unquestioningly accept the idea that fetuses are not human beings (at least in Canada—perhaps this is less true in the United States). It is taken for granted that a woman’s autonomy outweighs the rights of the unborn child. There’s no consideration of the responsibility towards the unborn children. Just a raw desire to come out on top in the imagined maternal-fetal conflict, regardless of abstract principles. Respecting a two-celled human being seems so absurd in the absence of the value of the intrinsic dignity of human beings, the very basis of the Western idea of equality. People will respect an idea, however inconvenient, if they believe they must to remain honourable. They will not respect a prenatal human being solely on the basis of its DNA.
That sense of responsibility comes from the belief that human beings deserve respect; that humanity is something special and makes an individual worthy of consideration.
We have completely lost the sense that human nature is intrinsically valuable. I don’t wish to make the argument here because it will make my blogpost even longer than this. The loss of belief in the intrinsic value of human is what leads to mass atrocities. The Nazis didn’t think all humans had an intrinsic dignity. The atheist communists sure didn’t. Any time a group of human beings was not regarded as having intrinsic human dignity, they were targeted for abuse, exploitation or elimination.
I think this loss of the sense of human value is the consequence of the loss of any sense of metaphysics: the idea that our reason is able to know with certitude about intangible realities. Although the rejection of metaphysics began very long ago in the late Middle Ages, in the last century, we see not just a rejection of the power of reason to know, but an elevation of the non-rational, the irrational and the anti-rational as the foundation for a worldview. Take Freudian psychology. Based on no scientific observations whatsoever, it posited the existence of an “unconscious” in the mind, which contained an id, an ego and a superego (which is now largely discredited.) Post-modernist philosophy rejects any kind of absolute, and even accommodates contradictions, against the principles of logic.
The relativism and lack of intellectual discipline of our age makes any kind of abstract consideration to be a very daunting, if not seemingly impossible task. Of course I wouldn’t expect just anyone to be able to do this—abstract thought is not something everyone can do. But most college-educated people should be able to, especially those who graduate in the humanities. But this involves such a major challenge to everyday ideas that that it’d be hard to imagine anyone doing this spontaneously.
But the alternative is to ignore the truth. And lest I be accused of arguing based on “results” – against which I argued above—let me say that the whole purpose of thinking is to know the truth about reality, whatever that reality happens to be. You fail at the purpose of thinking if you can’t know basic things like who is worthy of moral consideration and what moral behaviour is.
People can accept that as a possibility. But we’re not programmed to remain in ignorance. That’s human nature.
(Grab yourself a coffee...this is a long one ;) )
As we marked Remembrance Day this week, my attention turned towards the World War II era and I read up on the scientific racialism that fuelled the Nazis’ killing spree.
We have largely forgotten how widespread and accepted scientific racialism was back in the pre-war era. It was widely assumed that because whites were superior in this or that category, that gave them the right to kill or disrespect inferior peoples.
I’m not so irritated at the racism of the findings—that whites have higher IQ’s and that sort of thing. What grates on my nerves is that no one seemed to question that superiority gave one the right to kill. Even if, for the sake of discussion, you agreed that the Germans needed their Lebenstraum, what right did that give them to kill millions of people? Even if you thought that blacks constituted a threat to the purity of the white race, what right did it give people to lynch them?
There is absolutely no sense of responsibility toward others.
And of course this brings me to the fetal rights debate. You never read of a feminist claiming that a mother has a responsibility towards a fetus. A woman should be able to abort for any reason whatsoever, and no one is allowed to question that decision.
The fetus is a threat after all.
Poor choicers have no interest in that debate about the fetus. For abortionists and hardcore feminists, the fetus is worthy of zero moral consideration. Their allies in the poor choice movement may differ from one degree to another, attributing moral worth to the fetus in some circumstances and not others. A discussion on this matter would be politically fratricidal. Not to mention that it could play into the hands of pro-lifers by raising the status of the fetus, especially in Canada (where he has none). So the poor choice movement will remain officially mum on the fetus, holding to a relativistic position, with all the contradictions that that entails.
Poor choicers will continue to argue against fetal personhood based on the possible negative consequences of according that status. The problem with consequence-based thinking is that it make truth dependent on whether or not you like the results.
That may be a politically viable strategy. But it’s not intellectually honest. After all, even if Blacks had banded together and taken over the US and sullied “white culture”, was that any reason to deny their civil rights? If Jews had been the cause of all of Germany’s ills, would that have justified the Nuremberg Laws?
Of course not.
When you worry too much about consequences, you tend to forget principles. This leads to a mentality of accepting that the ends justify the means.
A lot of the argument about abortion is just that. Poor choicers posit that if pregnant women aren’t allowed to abort, they will be arrested for smoking a cigarette and that will lead to the establishment of the Republic of Gilead.
Let’s just assume for the moment that’s the case.
What right does that give anyone the right to kill their unborn child?
The argument from consequences is easy, because it by-passes the difficult process of actually using one’s reason and formulating principles. I’m not trying to argue that no feminist has an articulate defense for her beliefs beyond the typical pro-abortion slogans. But when you want to mobilize a bunch of people who may not be with you on a philosophical level, the easiest way to do that is by referring to what is concrete—namely potential consequences.
It’s the masses that seem to unquestioningly accept the idea that fetuses are not human beings (at least in Canada—perhaps this is less true in the United States). It is taken for granted that a woman’s autonomy outweighs the rights of the unborn child. There’s no consideration of the responsibility towards the unborn children. Just a raw desire to come out on top in the imagined maternal-fetal conflict, regardless of abstract principles. Respecting a two-celled human being seems so absurd in the absence of the value of the intrinsic dignity of human beings, the very basis of the Western idea of equality. People will respect an idea, however inconvenient, if they believe they must to remain honourable. They will not respect a prenatal human being solely on the basis of its DNA.
That sense of responsibility comes from the belief that human beings deserve respect; that humanity is something special and makes an individual worthy of consideration.
We have completely lost the sense that human nature is intrinsically valuable. I don’t wish to make the argument here because it will make my blogpost even longer than this. The loss of belief in the intrinsic value of human is what leads to mass atrocities. The Nazis didn’t think all humans had an intrinsic dignity. The atheist communists sure didn’t. Any time a group of human beings was not regarded as having intrinsic human dignity, they were targeted for abuse, exploitation or elimination.
I think this loss of the sense of human value is the consequence of the loss of any sense of metaphysics: the idea that our reason is able to know with certitude about intangible realities. Although the rejection of metaphysics began very long ago in the late Middle Ages, in the last century, we see not just a rejection of the power of reason to know, but an elevation of the non-rational, the irrational and the anti-rational as the foundation for a worldview. Take Freudian psychology. Based on no scientific observations whatsoever, it posited the existence of an “unconscious” in the mind, which contained an id, an ego and a superego (which is now largely discredited.) Post-modernist philosophy rejects any kind of absolute, and even accommodates contradictions, against the principles of logic.
The relativism and lack of intellectual discipline of our age makes any kind of abstract consideration to be a very daunting, if not seemingly impossible task. Of course I wouldn’t expect just anyone to be able to do this—abstract thought is not something everyone can do. But most college-educated people should be able to, especially those who graduate in the humanities. But this involves such a major challenge to everyday ideas that that it’d be hard to imagine anyone doing this spontaneously.
But the alternative is to ignore the truth. And lest I be accused of arguing based on “results” – against which I argued above—let me say that the whole purpose of thinking is to know the truth about reality, whatever that reality happens to be. You fail at the purpose of thinking if you can’t know basic things like who is worthy of moral consideration and what moral behaviour is.
People can accept that as a possibility. But we’re not programmed to remain in ignorance. That’s human nature.
Why Be Prolife? A Pastor's Testimony
Why I Am Pro-Life — A Pro-life vs. Pro-choice Testimony
by Pastor Jim Feeney, Ph.D.
My wife was several months pregnant and was hemorrhaging badly. We raced to the hospital, where her obstetrician met us at the emergency room. After a brief exam, the doctor told me, “Jim, it’s not good. Yesterday, during your wife's office visit, I heard the baby’s heartbeat, but there is none today.”
On the reasonable assumption that she had miscarried, the doctor arranged to have her moved to the operating room for the needed D&C. But first — thank the Lord! — he suggested an ultrasound to be absolutely certain that the unborn baby had expired. There we had the shock of our lives!
Right there on the ultrasound screen, clearly visible even to our untrained eyes, was our baby, alive and well and kicking about in the womb — a little, tiny, moving (and quite alive!) human being.
Then we noticed a dark oval on the ultrasound screen, just above our living baby. And that explained the hemorrhaging. It was the deceased twin of our living baby. This precious little one had apparently expired in the womb before developing. The technical term used by the doctor was a “blighted ovum.”
The doctor succeeded in controlling the bleeding and sent us home. Six months later my wife delivered our son John, who at the time of this writing is an honor student in college. All because a doctor had a “hunch” and decided to do an ultrasound before the needed D&C — a procedure which unwittingly would have killed John. That obstetrician’s ultrasound hunch saved our son’s life!
Thank you for taking the time to read this testimony. It will help you to understand why I am avidly "pro-life" rather than "pro-choice". What did I see on that sonogram screen? I saw a tiny, moving, living child. I saw little, developing arms and legs. I saw motion, moving, kicking. I saw a human being! Very little, yes, but clearly, unequivocally a human being.
I do not intend to jump into the scientific and medical debates going on between the pro-life and the pro-choice camps. I’m not a trained, credible spokesman in those technical disciplines.
I believe that I am a credible spokesman on the biblical issues relating to the pro-life position. And my intent in the following bible study is to offer SIX GOOD REASONS, BIBLICALLY, TO BE "PRO-LIFE" rather than "pro-choice".
1) I am pro-life because, unlike all other creatures, men and women are made in the image and likeness of God.
Genesis 1:26-27; 9:6 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.... [27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.... [9:6] “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.”
•• God Almighty singled mankind out for the unique privilege of being created in His image and likeness.
•• Therefore, men and women are of infinitely greater worth than other animals, birds, fish, and all other living creatures. This was God’s choice at the time of creation.
•• One of the Ten Commandments is: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). Why? Remember, God has made man in His image. Abortion is the calculated taking of a life created in God’s image.
2) I am pro-life, not "pro-choice", because God Almighty is the author and giver of life.
Nehemiah 9:6 You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.
Job 12:10 In [God’s] hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.
•• Life proceeds from God. Genesis 2:7 says that “God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”
•• Life comes from God; God is for life — that is, God is “pro”-life.
3) I am pro-life because the alternative is death.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life...
•• The abortion industry is a culture of death. The sanctity of life movement is a culture of life. What a contrast!
• God says, “Choose life!” That is God's "choice" — life!
• Don’t fall for the semantic deception that labels people as “pro-life” or “pro-choice.” That “choice” is a choice for death — the death of the unborn child. God says, “Choose life!”
•• 1 Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
• Death is an enemy! Post-abortion counseling reveals that many women have been traumatized by the later realization that they have opted for death rather than life for their unborn babies.
4) I am pro-life, not "pro-choice", because there is abundant evidence in the bible that God looks upon unborn children in the womb as human persons, with human emotions and possessing the human sin nature from conception.
Luke 1:39-44 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped FOR JOY. [bold and caps emphasis mine]
Psalm 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
•• The unborn John the Baptist, while still in his mother’s womb, is said to have “leaped for joy” as Mary (pregnant with Jesus) approached.
•• King David (Psalm 51:5) acknowledged that the uniquely human characteristic of sinfulness was in him from the time of his conception. Only humans can have sin attributed to them. David in the womb possessed the human sin nature.
5) I am pro-life because every child in the womb has potential for productive service to God.
Jeremiah 1:4-5 The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
•• God called Jeremiah to his future ministry as a prophet before he was born.
•• My wife and I prayed for each of our four children, while they were still in the womb, concerning their service to God.
6) I am pro-life because children are a God-given blessing, a source of happiness, a reward and a heritage from God.
Psalm 127:3-5a Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed [KJV: Happy] is the man whose quiver is full of them.
•• My wife and I continually thank God for our four children. We pray for them daily, even now after they have grown up.
•• Was raising them hard work? Certainly. Were there times of hardship and tiredness? Of course. But the blessings of children far outweighed any short-term difficulties or inconveniences.
• Indeed, “The fruit of the womb is [God’s] reward” (Psalm 127:3, KJV).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary of Six Good Reasons Why I Am Pro-Life:
• Men and women are made in the image of God.
• God Himself is for life. He is the author and giver of life.
• The alternative to life is death. Death is an enemy.
• There is abundant evidence in the bible that God looks upon unborn children in the womb as human persons, with human emotions and already possessing the human sin nature.
• Every child in the womb has potential for God’s service.
• Children are a heritage from God, a reward from Him, a God-given source of blessing and happiness.
“Therefore choose life!”
(Deuteronomy 30:19, KJV)
by Pastor Jim Feeney, Ph.D.
My wife was several months pregnant and was hemorrhaging badly. We raced to the hospital, where her obstetrician met us at the emergency room. After a brief exam, the doctor told me, “Jim, it’s not good. Yesterday, during your wife's office visit, I heard the baby’s heartbeat, but there is none today.”
On the reasonable assumption that she had miscarried, the doctor arranged to have her moved to the operating room for the needed D&C. But first — thank the Lord! — he suggested an ultrasound to be absolutely certain that the unborn baby had expired. There we had the shock of our lives!
Right there on the ultrasound screen, clearly visible even to our untrained eyes, was our baby, alive and well and kicking about in the womb — a little, tiny, moving (and quite alive!) human being.
Then we noticed a dark oval on the ultrasound screen, just above our living baby. And that explained the hemorrhaging. It was the deceased twin of our living baby. This precious little one had apparently expired in the womb before developing. The technical term used by the doctor was a “blighted ovum.”
The doctor succeeded in controlling the bleeding and sent us home. Six months later my wife delivered our son John, who at the time of this writing is an honor student in college. All because a doctor had a “hunch” and decided to do an ultrasound before the needed D&C — a procedure which unwittingly would have killed John. That obstetrician’s ultrasound hunch saved our son’s life!
Thank you for taking the time to read this testimony. It will help you to understand why I am avidly "pro-life" rather than "pro-choice". What did I see on that sonogram screen? I saw a tiny, moving, living child. I saw little, developing arms and legs. I saw motion, moving, kicking. I saw a human being! Very little, yes, but clearly, unequivocally a human being.
I do not intend to jump into the scientific and medical debates going on between the pro-life and the pro-choice camps. I’m not a trained, credible spokesman in those technical disciplines.
I believe that I am a credible spokesman on the biblical issues relating to the pro-life position. And my intent in the following bible study is to offer SIX GOOD REASONS, BIBLICALLY, TO BE "PRO-LIFE" rather than "pro-choice".
1) I am pro-life because, unlike all other creatures, men and women are made in the image and likeness of God.
Genesis 1:26-27; 9:6 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.... [27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.... [9:6] “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.”
•• God Almighty singled mankind out for the unique privilege of being created in His image and likeness.
•• Therefore, men and women are of infinitely greater worth than other animals, birds, fish, and all other living creatures. This was God’s choice at the time of creation.
•• One of the Ten Commandments is: “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13). Why? Remember, God has made man in His image. Abortion is the calculated taking of a life created in God’s image.
2) I am pro-life, not "pro-choice", because God Almighty is the author and giver of life.
Nehemiah 9:6 You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.
Job 12:10 In [God’s] hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.
•• Life proceeds from God. Genesis 2:7 says that “God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”
•• Life comes from God; God is for life — that is, God is “pro”-life.
3) I am pro-life because the alternative is death.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life...
•• The abortion industry is a culture of death. The sanctity of life movement is a culture of life. What a contrast!
• God says, “Choose life!” That is God's "choice" — life!
• Don’t fall for the semantic deception that labels people as “pro-life” or “pro-choice.” That “choice” is a choice for death — the death of the unborn child. God says, “Choose life!”
•• 1 Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
• Death is an enemy! Post-abortion counseling reveals that many women have been traumatized by the later realization that they have opted for death rather than life for their unborn babies.
4) I am pro-life, not "pro-choice", because there is abundant evidence in the bible that God looks upon unborn children in the womb as human persons, with human emotions and possessing the human sin nature from conception.
Luke 1:39-44 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped FOR JOY. [bold and caps emphasis mine]
Psalm 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
•• The unborn John the Baptist, while still in his mother’s womb, is said to have “leaped for joy” as Mary (pregnant with Jesus) approached.
•• King David (Psalm 51:5) acknowledged that the uniquely human characteristic of sinfulness was in him from the time of his conception. Only humans can have sin attributed to them. David in the womb possessed the human sin nature.
5) I am pro-life because every child in the womb has potential for productive service to God.
Jeremiah 1:4-5 The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
•• God called Jeremiah to his future ministry as a prophet before he was born.
•• My wife and I prayed for each of our four children, while they were still in the womb, concerning their service to God.
6) I am pro-life because children are a God-given blessing, a source of happiness, a reward and a heritage from God.
Psalm 127:3-5a Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed [KJV: Happy] is the man whose quiver is full of them.
•• My wife and I continually thank God for our four children. We pray for them daily, even now after they have grown up.
•• Was raising them hard work? Certainly. Were there times of hardship and tiredness? Of course. But the blessings of children far outweighed any short-term difficulties or inconveniences.
• Indeed, “The fruit of the womb is [God’s] reward” (Psalm 127:3, KJV).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Summary of Six Good Reasons Why I Am Pro-Life:
• Men and women are made in the image of God.
• God Himself is for life. He is the author and giver of life.
• The alternative to life is death. Death is an enemy.
• There is abundant evidence in the bible that God looks upon unborn children in the womb as human persons, with human emotions and already possessing the human sin nature.
• Every child in the womb has potential for God’s service.
• Children are a heritage from God, a reward from Him, a God-given source of blessing and happiness.
“Therefore choose life!”
(Deuteronomy 30:19, KJV)
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Back Alley Abortion Stats and Proabort Lies
The proaborts would love to have you believe that recriminalizing abortion would increase the number of deaths from back alley abortions. Then they cite bogus statistics of death from illegal abortions. Seriously, do they expect us to believe the coathanger wielding crackheads are calling some hotline to report another death? The only way they would have to track these backalley murderers is through emergency rooms, providing the woman made it that far. More lies from the proaborts.
Proaborts make the argument to keep abortion legal in the United States and they make the same one to topple prolife laws in other nations: making abortion illegal will increase women's deaths. However, a new report from the United Nations indicates that's just not so.
According to new figures from the United Nations Populations Division, nations with laws legalizing abortion have not seen a corresponding drop in the rate of maternal deaths.
They do not experience lower rates of maternal mortality compared to nation's that have made abortions illegal.
The information is found in the "World Mortality Report: 2005" which the Population Division released last month. The UN says it's the first of its kind and registers maternal and infant mortality for every nation.
According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a pro-life group that lobbies at the UN, the report reveals that Russia, where abortion has long been considered a form of birth control, a maternal mortality rate of 67 deaths for every 100,000 births.
The rate is 17 deaths for every 100,000 births in the United States, which also has very permissive abortion laws.
On the other hand, CFHRI reports in its Friday Fax that Ireland and Poland have lower rates. Both countries have come under strong protest from abortion advocates, who even sent an abortion ship to Poland in order to promote abortions there.
Ireland has the lowest maternal mortality rate of Poland, the U.S. and Russia with just 5 deaths for every 100,000 births. Poland's is also lower with 13 deaths for every 100,000 births.
Pro-abortion laws also do not decrease infant mortality, even when the number of abortions is subtracted from the number of infant deaths.
Ireland has the lowest rate at 6 deaths for every 1,000 live births, both Poland and the U.S. are at 7 deaths for every 1,000 live babies born, and proabortion Russia has the highest at 12 deaths per 1,000 babies born.
While abortion advocates exaggerated the number of women who died from abortions prior to it becoming legal in 1973, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, the former founder of NARAL, admitted that his group drastically inflated the number of abortions deaths to grab media attention.
Meanwhile, other reports have shown that the advancement of medical technology, including the invention of penicillin, led to a decrease in the number of illegal abortion deaths -- not legalizing abortion.
Naturally, they will argue that the United Nations is a 'biased' source. Then again, they argue that God, the Author of Life, is a biased source. No accounting for intelligence among the deathmongers.
Proaborts make the argument to keep abortion legal in the United States and they make the same one to topple prolife laws in other nations: making abortion illegal will increase women's deaths. However, a new report from the United Nations indicates that's just not so.
According to new figures from the United Nations Populations Division, nations with laws legalizing abortion have not seen a corresponding drop in the rate of maternal deaths.
They do not experience lower rates of maternal mortality compared to nation's that have made abortions illegal.
The information is found in the "World Mortality Report: 2005" which the Population Division released last month. The UN says it's the first of its kind and registers maternal and infant mortality for every nation.
According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a pro-life group that lobbies at the UN, the report reveals that Russia, where abortion has long been considered a form of birth control, a maternal mortality rate of 67 deaths for every 100,000 births.
The rate is 17 deaths for every 100,000 births in the United States, which also has very permissive abortion laws.
On the other hand, CFHRI reports in its Friday Fax that Ireland and Poland have lower rates. Both countries have come under strong protest from abortion advocates, who even sent an abortion ship to Poland in order to promote abortions there.
Ireland has the lowest maternal mortality rate of Poland, the U.S. and Russia with just 5 deaths for every 100,000 births. Poland's is also lower with 13 deaths for every 100,000 births.
Pro-abortion laws also do not decrease infant mortality, even when the number of abortions is subtracted from the number of infant deaths.
Ireland has the lowest rate at 6 deaths for every 1,000 live births, both Poland and the U.S. are at 7 deaths for every 1,000 live babies born, and proabortion Russia has the highest at 12 deaths per 1,000 babies born.
While abortion advocates exaggerated the number of women who died from abortions prior to it becoming legal in 1973, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, the former founder of NARAL, admitted that his group drastically inflated the number of abortions deaths to grab media attention.
Meanwhile, other reports have shown that the advancement of medical technology, including the invention of penicillin, led to a decrease in the number of illegal abortion deaths -- not legalizing abortion.
Naturally, they will argue that the United Nations is a 'biased' source. Then again, they argue that God, the Author of Life, is a biased source. No accounting for intelligence among the deathmongers.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
National Night of Prayer for Life
via Priests For Life
Uniting the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with the Feast of St. Juan Diego
The year 2009 will mark the 20th annual National Night of Prayer for Life to take place from 9 PM Dec. 8th (Tuesday) to 1 AM Dec. 9th (Wednesday)
It was on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (then celebrated on December 9th) that Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas and the unborn, first appeared to St. Juan Diego. The National Night of Prayer for Life bridges these two feasts to honor Our Blessed Mother and to pray for the sanctity of all human life.
We ask each parish to join in praying on this holy occasion.
The National Night of Prayer for Life is a pro-life prayer service consisting of exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, 20 decades of the Rosary, prayer to St. Michael, silent prayer and hymns.
For more information and to download prayers, instructions and flyers go to www.nationalnightofprayerforlife.org
Contact your local priests, religious, Right to Life Organizations, Knights of Columbus, and other parish/fraternal organizations and inform your friends and family across the nation.
Uniting the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with the Feast of St. Juan Diego
The year 2009 will mark the 20th annual National Night of Prayer for Life to take place from 9 PM Dec. 8th (Tuesday) to 1 AM Dec. 9th (Wednesday)
It was on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (then celebrated on December 9th) that Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas and the unborn, first appeared to St. Juan Diego. The National Night of Prayer for Life bridges these two feasts to honor Our Blessed Mother and to pray for the sanctity of all human life.
We ask each parish to join in praying on this holy occasion.
The National Night of Prayer for Life is a pro-life prayer service consisting of exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, 20 decades of the Rosary, prayer to St. Michael, silent prayer and hymns.
For more information and to download prayers, instructions and flyers go to www.nationalnightofprayerforlife.org
Contact your local priests, religious, Right to Life Organizations, Knights of Columbus, and other parish/fraternal organizations and inform your friends and family across the nation.
The Right to Destruction?
Abortion advocates want to give all children their "rights" from their parents, so that they can have sex whenever and with whomever; but then they want all women and girls to have the "right" to kill their own human children before they are born...
What about the "rights" of these unborn children?
So, give children the "right" to have sex, but when they get pregnant, they should have the "right" to kill another child, their own offspring.
What "right" do they have when they get STDs, or clinical depression?
Then, following this same logic, they should have the "right" to commit suicide if they get depressed...
How ironic that the ‘Love’ Generation should spawn such a culturally accepted abomination as abortion...
If "rights" are supposed to bring freedom, why do these "rights" bring so much destruction and death?
What about the "rights" of these unborn children?
So, give children the "right" to have sex, but when they get pregnant, they should have the "right" to kill another child, their own offspring.
What "right" do they have when they get STDs, or clinical depression?
Then, following this same logic, they should have the "right" to commit suicide if they get depressed...
How ironic that the ‘Love’ Generation should spawn such a culturally accepted abomination as abortion...
If "rights" are supposed to bring freedom, why do these "rights" bring so much destruction and death?
Monday, November 23, 2009
Planned Parenthood and its Corporate Sponsors
Ever wonder which companies funnel money into the abortion industry? Read on...
A leading pro-life group that monitors Planned Parenthood and companies that support the nation's largest abortion business has released a new list of corporate supporters. Life Decisions International says 160 companies have stopped backing the pro-abortion group since its boycotts began.
Several companies appeared on the boycott list for the first time include the Carlson Companies, which oversees numerous well-known hotel chains such as Country Inns & Suites, Park Inn, Park Plaza, Radisson, and Regent.
Unfortunately another top hotel chain -- InterContinental Hotels -- is backing Planned Parenthood financially as well. That means pro-life advocates should avoid hotels such as Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and Staybridge.
T.G.I. Friday's restaurant made the list as did Midas, a company known for its auto repair shops that dot the country.
Paul Ecke Ranch, which grows and sells poinsettias, printer FastSigns, and BBJ Linen, which sells home products, also made the list.
LDI president Douglas Scott reports that "it is estimated that the boycott has cost Planned Parenthood more than $40 million" since his group first began boycotting companies 16 years ago.
"This should be a testament to those who believe it is impossible to change corporate philanthropic behavior," Scott said.
Other corporations that continue as boycott targets for supporting the abortion business include Wachovia, Nike, Time Warner, Bank of America, the Dallas Cowboys, CIGNA, Walt Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Chevron, Wells Fargo, Whole Foods Market, and Nationwide Insurance.
The revised boycott list also includes a "Dishonorable Mention" section, which identifies charitable groups that are associated with Planned Parenthood.
Those include Amnesty International, the American Cancer Society, Camp Fire Girls, Girls Inc., Girl Scouts, Kiwanis Clubs, Doctors Without Borders, the March of Dimes, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Rotary Clubs, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and the YWCA.
"This has not been some sort of 'Jesse Jackson boycott' where we make news for a few days and then go away," Scott said.
"Corporate officials are learning that those who value life are among the most dedicated people on earth," Scott told LifeNews.com. "We will not go away until corporate involvement with Planned Parenthood comes to an end."
"The pro-life movement will succeed only to the extent that pro-life people are willing to be inconvenienced," Scott said. "The very lives of children are worth that much -- and a whole lot more."
New boycott targets, appearing on the pre-Christmas 2009 edition of The Boycott List, include Buffalo Wild Wings (restaurants), Estée Lauder (cosmetics/personal care products), Computer Sciences Corporation (information technology), and United Parcel Service (shipping services).
Corporations continuing as boycott targets from the previously released Boycott List include eBay (Pay{Pal, etc.), AlphaGraphics, Wells Fargo (including Wachovia), Nike, Time Warner (HBO, AOL, etc.), Bank of America, Walt Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Lost Arrow (Patagonia, etc.), Chevron, and Nationwide Insurance, and Sonic (restaurants), among others.
LDI singled out longtime boycott target Whole Foods Market for special attention. "Whole Foods Market has been misleading pro-life consumers for many years. Statements from the Company vary, depending on who is doing the talking at the time," LDI Director of Communications Ken Garvey. "Whole Foods has been emphasizing that it does not support Planned Parenthood at the corporate level, but it does do so on the local level. Corporate officials are telling pro-life advocates it is acceptable to shop at Whole Foods if their particular local market does not give to Planned Parenthood. As one Whole Foods officials said, 'As I explain to many of the people you encourage to boycott us, check with your local store and see if they donate. Many are happy with this.'"
"We are surprised that any pro-life consumer would fail to see how they are being manipulated by Whole Foods," Garvey said. "Whole Foods could put an immediate stop to support of Planned Parenthood if the chief executive officer chose to do so. Would the 'decentralized giving program' excuse be acceptable to the Humane Society if a local market chose to make a donation to support dog fighting. Certainly not. Corporate headquarters would put an immediate stop to it. Pro-lifers should view Planned Parenthood in the same way."
Garvey noted that Whole Foods stores located in liberal areas are supporting the pro-abortion group while those in more conservative areas are pleading ignorance and innocence. "It is foolhardy to buy into the idea that one may shop at Whole Foods if their local store claims it is not funding Planned Parenthood," he said. "Every pro-life consumer who accepts this 'reasoning' is doing great damage to the Pro-Life Movement in general and the Corporate Funding Project in particular."
The new Boycott List includes an expanded "Dishonorable Mention" section, which identifies charitable groups that are associated with Planned Parenthood and/or its agenda. Groups named in this section include American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), Lions Clubs, the American Cancer Society, Camp Fire, Girls Inc., Girl Scouts, Kiwanis Clubs, the March of Dimes, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Rotary Clubs, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the Salvation Army, the YWCA, and YMCA, among others.
"This has not been some sort of 'Jesse Jackson boycott' where we make news for a few days and then go away," Strobhar said. "Corporate officials are learning that those who value life are among the most dedicated people on earth. We will not go away until corporate involvement with Planned Parenthood comes to an end."
Also on the list are the United States Postal Service and the Playboy Foundation, a known objectifier of women. Degenerates hang with degenerates. Boycott these companies.
A leading pro-life group that monitors Planned Parenthood and companies that support the nation's largest abortion business has released a new list of corporate supporters. Life Decisions International says 160 companies have stopped backing the pro-abortion group since its boycotts began.
Several companies appeared on the boycott list for the first time include the Carlson Companies, which oversees numerous well-known hotel chains such as Country Inns & Suites, Park Inn, Park Plaza, Radisson, and Regent.
Unfortunately another top hotel chain -- InterContinental Hotels -- is backing Planned Parenthood financially as well. That means pro-life advocates should avoid hotels such as Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and Staybridge.
T.G.I. Friday's restaurant made the list as did Midas, a company known for its auto repair shops that dot the country.
Paul Ecke Ranch, which grows and sells poinsettias, printer FastSigns, and BBJ Linen, which sells home products, also made the list.
LDI president Douglas Scott reports that "it is estimated that the boycott has cost Planned Parenthood more than $40 million" since his group first began boycotting companies 16 years ago.
"This should be a testament to those who believe it is impossible to change corporate philanthropic behavior," Scott said.
Other corporations that continue as boycott targets for supporting the abortion business include Wachovia, Nike, Time Warner, Bank of America, the Dallas Cowboys, CIGNA, Walt Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Chevron, Wells Fargo, Whole Foods Market, and Nationwide Insurance.
The revised boycott list also includes a "Dishonorable Mention" section, which identifies charitable groups that are associated with Planned Parenthood.
Those include Amnesty International, the American Cancer Society, Camp Fire Girls, Girls Inc., Girl Scouts, Kiwanis Clubs, Doctors Without Borders, the March of Dimes, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Rotary Clubs, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and the YWCA.
"This has not been some sort of 'Jesse Jackson boycott' where we make news for a few days and then go away," Scott said.
"Corporate officials are learning that those who value life are among the most dedicated people on earth," Scott told LifeNews.com. "We will not go away until corporate involvement with Planned Parenthood comes to an end."
"The pro-life movement will succeed only to the extent that pro-life people are willing to be inconvenienced," Scott said. "The very lives of children are worth that much -- and a whole lot more."
New boycott targets, appearing on the pre-Christmas 2009 edition of The Boycott List, include Buffalo Wild Wings (restaurants), Estée Lauder (cosmetics/personal care products), Computer Sciences Corporation (information technology), and United Parcel Service (shipping services).
Corporations continuing as boycott targets from the previously released Boycott List include eBay (Pay{Pal, etc.), AlphaGraphics, Wells Fargo (including Wachovia), Nike, Time Warner (HBO, AOL, etc.), Bank of America, Walt Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Lost Arrow (Patagonia, etc.), Chevron, and Nationwide Insurance, and Sonic (restaurants), among others.
LDI singled out longtime boycott target Whole Foods Market for special attention. "Whole Foods Market has been misleading pro-life consumers for many years. Statements from the Company vary, depending on who is doing the talking at the time," LDI Director of Communications Ken Garvey. "Whole Foods has been emphasizing that it does not support Planned Parenthood at the corporate level, but it does do so on the local level. Corporate officials are telling pro-life advocates it is acceptable to shop at Whole Foods if their particular local market does not give to Planned Parenthood. As one Whole Foods officials said, 'As I explain to many of the people you encourage to boycott us, check with your local store and see if they donate. Many are happy with this.'"
"We are surprised that any pro-life consumer would fail to see how they are being manipulated by Whole Foods," Garvey said. "Whole Foods could put an immediate stop to support of Planned Parenthood if the chief executive officer chose to do so. Would the 'decentralized giving program' excuse be acceptable to the Humane Society if a local market chose to make a donation to support dog fighting. Certainly not. Corporate headquarters would put an immediate stop to it. Pro-lifers should view Planned Parenthood in the same way."
Garvey noted that Whole Foods stores located in liberal areas are supporting the pro-abortion group while those in more conservative areas are pleading ignorance and innocence. "It is foolhardy to buy into the idea that one may shop at Whole Foods if their local store claims it is not funding Planned Parenthood," he said. "Every pro-life consumer who accepts this 'reasoning' is doing great damage to the Pro-Life Movement in general and the Corporate Funding Project in particular."
The new Boycott List includes an expanded "Dishonorable Mention" section, which identifies charitable groups that are associated with Planned Parenthood and/or its agenda. Groups named in this section include American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), Lions Clubs, the American Cancer Society, Camp Fire, Girls Inc., Girl Scouts, Kiwanis Clubs, the March of Dimes, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Rotary Clubs, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the Salvation Army, the YWCA, and YMCA, among others.
"This has not been some sort of 'Jesse Jackson boycott' where we make news for a few days and then go away," Strobhar said. "Corporate officials are learning that those who value life are among the most dedicated people on earth. We will not go away until corporate involvement with Planned Parenthood comes to an end."
Also on the list are the United States Postal Service and the Playboy Foundation, a known objectifier of women. Degenerates hang with degenerates. Boycott these companies.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Coathanger Symbology-Misleading and Emotionally Charged Rhetoric
You see them everywhere on Twitter, and at prochoice demonstrations everywhere; buttons and placards emblazoned with coat hangers, representative of an era when abortion was illegal and desperate women in the thousands sought out the services of back-alley abortionists (or so the proaborts would like you to believe.)
This symbol of the pro-choice movement represents the many women who were harmed or killed because they either performed illegal abortions on themselves (i.e., the surgery was performed with a “coat hanger”) or went to unscrupulous physicians (or “back-alley butchers”). Hence, as the argument goes, if abortion is made illegal, then women will once again be harmed.
Needless to say, this argument serves a powerful rhetorical purpose. Although the thought of finding a deceased young woman with a bloody coat hanger is—to say the least—unpleasant, powerful and emotionally charged rhetoric does not a good argument make.
The chief reason this argument fails is because it commits the fallacy of begging the question. In fact, as we shall see, this fallacy seems to lurk behind a good percentage of the popular arguments for the pro-choice position. One begs the question when one assumes what one is trying to prove. Another way of putting it is to say that the arguer is reasoning in a circle.
For example, if one concludes that the Boston Celtics are the best team because no team is as good, one is not giving any reasons for this belief other than the conclusion one is trying to prove, since to claim that a team is the best team is exactly the same as saying that no team is as good.
The question-begging nature of the coat-hanger argument is not difficult to discern: only by assuming that the unborn are not fully human does the argument work. If the unborn are not fully human, then the pro-choice advocate has a legitimate concern, just as one would have in overturning a law forbidding appendicitis operations if countless people were needlessly dying of both appendicitis and illegal operations. But if the unborn are fully human, this pro-choice argument is tantamount to saying that because people die or are harmed while killing other people, the state should make it safe for them to do so.
Even some pro-choice advocates, who argue for their position in other ways, admit that the coat hanger/back-alley argument is fallacious. For example, pro-choice philosopher Mary Anne Warren clearly recognizes that her position on abortion cannot rest on this argument without it first being demonstrated that the unborn entity is not fully human. She writes that...
The fact that restricting access to abortion has tragic side effects does not, in itself, show that the restrictions are unjustified, since murder is wrong regardless of the consequences of prohibiting it.
Although it is doubtful whether statistics can establish a particular moral position, it should be pointed out that there has been considerable debate over both the actual number of illegal abortions and the number of women who died as a result of them prior to legalization. Prior to Roe, pro-choicers were fond of saying that nearly a million women every year obtained illegal abortions performed with rusty coat hangers in back-alleys that resulted in thousands of fatalities. Given the gravity of the issue at hand, it would go beyond the duty of kindness to call such claims an exaggeration, because several well-attested facts establish that the pro-choice movement was simply lying.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson—who was one of the original leaders of the American pro-abortion movement and co-founder of N.A.R.A.L. (National Abortion Rights Action League), and who has since become pro-life—admits that he and others in the abortion rights movement intentionally fabricated the number of women who allegedly died as a result of illegal abortions.
How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In N.A.R.A.L. we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always "5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year." I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the “morality” of the revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics. The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason which had to be done was permissible.
Dr. Nathanson's observation is borne out in the best official statistical studies available. According to the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics, there were a mere 39 women who died from illegal abortions in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade. Dr. Andre Hellegers, the late Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Georgetown University Hospital, pointed out that there has been a steady decrease of abortion-related deaths since 1942. That year there were 1,231 deaths. Due to improved medical care and the use of penicillin, this number fell to 133 by 1968. The year before the first state-legalized abortion, 1966, there were about 120 abortion-related deaths.
This is not to minimize the undeniable fact that such deaths were significant losses to the families and loved ones of those who died. But one must be willing to admit the equally undeniable fact that if the unborn are fully human, these abortion-related maternal deaths pale in comparison to the 1.5 million preborn humans who die (on the average) every year.
And even if we grant that there were more abortion-related deaths than the low number confirmed, there is no doubt that the 5,000 to 10,000 deaths cited by the abortion rights movement is a gross exaggeration.
It is simply false to claim that there were nearly a million illegal abortions per year prior to legalization. There is no reliable statistical support for this claim. In addition, a highly sophisticated recent study has concluded that "a reasonable estimate for the actual number of criminal abortions per year in the prelegalization era [prior to 1967] would be from a low of 39,000 (1950) to a high of 210,000 (1961) and a mean of 98,000 per year.
It is misleading to say that pre-Roe illegal abortions were performed by “back-alley butchers” with rusty coat hangers. While president of Planned Parenthood, Dr. Mary Calderone pointed out in a 1960 American Journal of Health article that Dr. Kinsey showed in 1958 that 84% to 87% of all illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians in good standing. Dr. Calderone herself concluded that "90% of all illegal abortions are presently done by physicians." It seems that the vast majority of the alleged “back-alley butchers” eventually became the “reproductive health providers” of our present day. Nearly always, the first question a woman asks an abortionist is "will this hurt,". It's misleading and disingenuous to assume women will run in droves to coathanger wielding back-alley butchers when they are that afraid for their own safety. Too bad they don't exert that kind of care for the safety of their unborn child. When women die from illegal abortion, two lives are wasted that could have been saved. And they call Prolifers stupid?
REFERENCES
John Nolt and Dennis Rohatyn, Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Logic (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1988), P. 172. [up]
Mary Anne Warren, "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion," in The Problem of Abortion, Second edition, Joel Feinberg, editor (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1984), p. 103. [up]
See Daniel Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality (New York: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 132-136; and Stephen Krason, Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), pp. 301-310. [up]
Bernard Nathanson, M.D., Aborting America (New York: Doubleday, 1979), p. 193. [up]
From the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics Center for Disease Control, as cited in Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Wilke, Abortion: Questions and Answers, Revised edition (Cincinnati: Hayes Publishing, 1988), pp. 101-102. [up]
From Dr. Hellegers's testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Constitutional Amendments, April 25, 11974; cited in John Jefferson Davis, Abortion and the Christian (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1984), p. 75. [up]
From the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics Center for Disease Control, as cited in Wilke, pp. 101-102. [up]
See John Jefferson Davis, Abortion and the Christian (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1984), p. 75. [up]
Daniel Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality (New York: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 132-136; Stephen Krason, Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), pp. 301-310. [up]
Barbara J. Syska, Thomas W. Hilgers, M.D., and Dennis O'Hare, "An Objective Model for Estimating Criminal Abortions and Its Implications for Public Policy," in New Perspectives on Human Abortion, ed. Thomas Hilgers, M.D., Dennis J. Horan, and David Mall (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1981), p. 78. [up]
This symbol of the pro-choice movement represents the many women who were harmed or killed because they either performed illegal abortions on themselves (i.e., the surgery was performed with a “coat hanger”) or went to unscrupulous physicians (or “back-alley butchers”). Hence, as the argument goes, if abortion is made illegal, then women will once again be harmed.
Needless to say, this argument serves a powerful rhetorical purpose. Although the thought of finding a deceased young woman with a bloody coat hanger is—to say the least—unpleasant, powerful and emotionally charged rhetoric does not a good argument make.
The chief reason this argument fails is because it commits the fallacy of begging the question. In fact, as we shall see, this fallacy seems to lurk behind a good percentage of the popular arguments for the pro-choice position. One begs the question when one assumes what one is trying to prove. Another way of putting it is to say that the arguer is reasoning in a circle.
For example, if one concludes that the Boston Celtics are the best team because no team is as good, one is not giving any reasons for this belief other than the conclusion one is trying to prove, since to claim that a team is the best team is exactly the same as saying that no team is as good.
The question-begging nature of the coat-hanger argument is not difficult to discern: only by assuming that the unborn are not fully human does the argument work. If the unborn are not fully human, then the pro-choice advocate has a legitimate concern, just as one would have in overturning a law forbidding appendicitis operations if countless people were needlessly dying of both appendicitis and illegal operations. But if the unborn are fully human, this pro-choice argument is tantamount to saying that because people die or are harmed while killing other people, the state should make it safe for them to do so.
Even some pro-choice advocates, who argue for their position in other ways, admit that the coat hanger/back-alley argument is fallacious. For example, pro-choice philosopher Mary Anne Warren clearly recognizes that her position on abortion cannot rest on this argument without it first being demonstrated that the unborn entity is not fully human. She writes that...
The fact that restricting access to abortion has tragic side effects does not, in itself, show that the restrictions are unjustified, since murder is wrong regardless of the consequences of prohibiting it.
Although it is doubtful whether statistics can establish a particular moral position, it should be pointed out that there has been considerable debate over both the actual number of illegal abortions and the number of women who died as a result of them prior to legalization. Prior to Roe, pro-choicers were fond of saying that nearly a million women every year obtained illegal abortions performed with rusty coat hangers in back-alleys that resulted in thousands of fatalities. Given the gravity of the issue at hand, it would go beyond the duty of kindness to call such claims an exaggeration, because several well-attested facts establish that the pro-choice movement was simply lying.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson—who was one of the original leaders of the American pro-abortion movement and co-founder of N.A.R.A.L. (National Abortion Rights Action League), and who has since become pro-life—admits that he and others in the abortion rights movement intentionally fabricated the number of women who allegedly died as a result of illegal abortions.
How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In N.A.R.A.L. we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always "5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year." I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the “morality” of the revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics. The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason which had to be done was permissible.
Dr. Nathanson's observation is borne out in the best official statistical studies available. According to the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics, there were a mere 39 women who died from illegal abortions in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade. Dr. Andre Hellegers, the late Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Georgetown University Hospital, pointed out that there has been a steady decrease of abortion-related deaths since 1942. That year there were 1,231 deaths. Due to improved medical care and the use of penicillin, this number fell to 133 by 1968. The year before the first state-legalized abortion, 1966, there were about 120 abortion-related deaths.
This is not to minimize the undeniable fact that such deaths were significant losses to the families and loved ones of those who died. But one must be willing to admit the equally undeniable fact that if the unborn are fully human, these abortion-related maternal deaths pale in comparison to the 1.5 million preborn humans who die (on the average) every year.
And even if we grant that there were more abortion-related deaths than the low number confirmed, there is no doubt that the 5,000 to 10,000 deaths cited by the abortion rights movement is a gross exaggeration.
It is simply false to claim that there were nearly a million illegal abortions per year prior to legalization. There is no reliable statistical support for this claim. In addition, a highly sophisticated recent study has concluded that "a reasonable estimate for the actual number of criminal abortions per year in the prelegalization era [prior to 1967] would be from a low of 39,000 (1950) to a high of 210,000 (1961) and a mean of 98,000 per year.
It is misleading to say that pre-Roe illegal abortions were performed by “back-alley butchers” with rusty coat hangers. While president of Planned Parenthood, Dr. Mary Calderone pointed out in a 1960 American Journal of Health article that Dr. Kinsey showed in 1958 that 84% to 87% of all illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians in good standing. Dr. Calderone herself concluded that "90% of all illegal abortions are presently done by physicians." It seems that the vast majority of the alleged “back-alley butchers” eventually became the “reproductive health providers” of our present day. Nearly always, the first question a woman asks an abortionist is "will this hurt,". It's misleading and disingenuous to assume women will run in droves to coathanger wielding back-alley butchers when they are that afraid for their own safety. Too bad they don't exert that kind of care for the safety of their unborn child. When women die from illegal abortion, two lives are wasted that could have been saved. And they call Prolifers stupid?
REFERENCES
John Nolt and Dennis Rohatyn, Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Logic (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1988), P. 172. [up]
Mary Anne Warren, "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion," in The Problem of Abortion, Second edition, Joel Feinberg, editor (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1984), p. 103. [up]
See Daniel Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality (New York: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 132-136; and Stephen Krason, Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), pp. 301-310. [up]
Bernard Nathanson, M.D., Aborting America (New York: Doubleday, 1979), p. 193. [up]
From the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics Center for Disease Control, as cited in Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Wilke, Abortion: Questions and Answers, Revised edition (Cincinnati: Hayes Publishing, 1988), pp. 101-102. [up]
From Dr. Hellegers's testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Constitutional Amendments, April 25, 11974; cited in John Jefferson Davis, Abortion and the Christian (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1984), p. 75. [up]
From the U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics Center for Disease Control, as cited in Wilke, pp. 101-102. [up]
See John Jefferson Davis, Abortion and the Christian (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1984), p. 75. [up]
Daniel Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality (New York: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 132-136; Stephen Krason, Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), pp. 301-310. [up]
Barbara J. Syska, Thomas W. Hilgers, M.D., and Dennis O'Hare, "An Objective Model for Estimating Criminal Abortions and Its Implications for Public Policy," in New Perspectives on Human Abortion, ed. Thomas Hilgers, M.D., Dennis J. Horan, and David Mall (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1981), p. 78. [up]
Competing Rights-The Right Not To Be Killed Supercedes the Right to be Pregnant
via Abort73
Some have suggested that prohibiting a woman from having an abortion is to place the value of an embryo or fetus above that of the woman herself. Restricting abortion does not imply that the child is more valuable than the mother. Rather, it recognizes that the child's right to not be killed is more fundamental than the woman's right to not be pregnant.
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 law exists to protect the more fundamental right. We see this all the time. For example, if a car is driving down a street while someone is crossing that street, the law requires the driver of the 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. The autonomy of the driver must be temporarily suspended to protect the life of the pedestrian. Though a pregnant woman gives up far more than a few minutes of drive time, she gives up far less than the baby, who would otherwise be killed.
At a basic level, the driver/pedestrian example helps illustrate how the law should respond when the rights of individuals conflict with each other. Namely, the less fundamental rights must yield to the more fundamental rights. There are still those who maintain, however, that the mother's right to not be pregnant, is more fundamental than her child's right to not be killed.
In 1971, Judith Jarvis, an American moral philosopher and abortion advocate, published what some call "the most widely reprinted essay in all of contemporary philosophy". A Defense of Abortion concedes that fetuses should be recognized as persons under the law, but argues that "the right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly". Jarvis then offers her "violinist argument" as an example of a situation in which most people would recognize the moral justice in allowing an innocent human being to die.
The example goes something like this. A pregnant woman is comparable to someone who has been kidnapped in her sleep by a fictitious music lovers society, so that her kidneys can be used against her will to sustain the life of another person. The embryo or fetus is comparable to a world-famous violinist, who is unconscious, who suffers from a fatal kidney ailment, and whose life can be sustained only by being "plugged in" to the kidnapped woman. Pregnancy is comparable to the nine months in which the music lovers society is forcing this woman to remain in bed, plugged into the violinist, until he is sufficiently recovered to survive on his own.
What's the point of this rather bizarre analogy (besides putting us on our guard against the dangers of predatory music societies)? The point is to show that if it's reasonable for a kidnapped woman to prevent an unconscious, violinist from using her kidneys, then it must be equally reasonable for a woman to end her pregnancy through abortion. Jarvis is arguing that even though the embryo or fetus is a living human being, it may be justly killed because it is "using" its mother's body against her will (just as the world-famous violinist did). Here are some of the more obvious problems with her logic:
Ninety-nine percent of all abortions in the U.S. are performed on women who chose to have sexual intercourse. Since pregnancy is a frequent, natural result of sex, these women cannot be compared to someone who is kidnapped in their sleep. They engaged in a behavior that naturally results in pregnancy. To date, there are no behaviors that naturally lead to being kidnapped in your sleep and connected to an unconscious, world-famous musician.
The relationship between a pregnant woman and the embryo or fetus in her womb is a mother/child relationship. It is not a relationship between strangers, as Jarvis makes out. Parents have a natural obligation to care for the their children. This is by no means unreasonable or extraordinary.
It is only in rare cases that pregnancy confines a woman perennially to her bed. The inconvenience to someone who is kidnapped and forced to stay in bed for nine months far exceeds the inconvenience of a normal pregnancy.
Finally, abortion is not just letting an innocent person die, or taking them off of life support. Abortion is an active, violent form of killing. This is an admittedly less substantial objection than the others (since abortion would be objectionable even if the embryo or fetus were simply removed from the womb, alive, and then left to die). Nevertheless, the ethics of Jarvis' argument would be dramatically complicated if the violinist had to first be dismembered in order to be successfully removed. How many people could actually go with removing the violinist, if they had to first cut his body to pieces?!
The demands of pregnancy are real and significant, but they are temporary; they are on behalf of a helpless child, and they are perfectly natural. Moral philosophers can scheme to their hearts content, but it doesn't change the fact that abortion permanently takes away the most fundamental right of an innocent human being. And we're not talking about a disconnected stranger who has trespassed against the woman. We're talking about her very own child, a child who does not trespass to live and grow in her womb.
Some have suggested that prohibiting a woman from having an abortion is to place the value of an embryo or fetus above that of the woman herself. Restricting abortion does not imply that the child is more valuable than the mother. Rather, it recognizes that the child's right to not be killed is more fundamental than the woman's right to not be pregnant.
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 law exists to protect the more fundamental right. We see this all the time. For example, if a car is driving down a street while someone is crossing that street, the law requires the driver of the 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. The autonomy of the driver must be temporarily suspended to protect the life of the pedestrian. Though a pregnant woman gives up far more than a few minutes of drive time, she gives up far less than the baby, who would otherwise be killed.
At a basic level, the driver/pedestrian example helps illustrate how the law should respond when the rights of individuals conflict with each other. Namely, the less fundamental rights must yield to the more fundamental rights. There are still those who maintain, however, that the mother's right to not be pregnant, is more fundamental than her child's right to not be killed.
In 1971, Judith Jarvis, an American moral philosopher and abortion advocate, published what some call "the most widely reprinted essay in all of contemporary philosophy". A Defense of Abortion concedes that fetuses should be recognized as persons under the law, but argues that "the right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly". Jarvis then offers her "violinist argument" as an example of a situation in which most people would recognize the moral justice in allowing an innocent human being to die.
The example goes something like this. A pregnant woman is comparable to someone who has been kidnapped in her sleep by a fictitious music lovers society, so that her kidneys can be used against her will to sustain the life of another person. The embryo or fetus is comparable to a world-famous violinist, who is unconscious, who suffers from a fatal kidney ailment, and whose life can be sustained only by being "plugged in" to the kidnapped woman. Pregnancy is comparable to the nine months in which the music lovers society is forcing this woman to remain in bed, plugged into the violinist, until he is sufficiently recovered to survive on his own.
What's the point of this rather bizarre analogy (besides putting us on our guard against the dangers of predatory music societies)? The point is to show that if it's reasonable for a kidnapped woman to prevent an unconscious, violinist from using her kidneys, then it must be equally reasonable for a woman to end her pregnancy through abortion. Jarvis is arguing that even though the embryo or fetus is a living human being, it may be justly killed because it is "using" its mother's body against her will (just as the world-famous violinist did). Here are some of the more obvious problems with her logic:
Ninety-nine percent of all abortions in the U.S. are performed on women who chose to have sexual intercourse. Since pregnancy is a frequent, natural result of sex, these women cannot be compared to someone who is kidnapped in their sleep. They engaged in a behavior that naturally results in pregnancy. To date, there are no behaviors that naturally lead to being kidnapped in your sleep and connected to an unconscious, world-famous musician.
The relationship between a pregnant woman and the embryo or fetus in her womb is a mother/child relationship. It is not a relationship between strangers, as Jarvis makes out. Parents have a natural obligation to care for the their children. This is by no means unreasonable or extraordinary.
It is only in rare cases that pregnancy confines a woman perennially to her bed. The inconvenience to someone who is kidnapped and forced to stay in bed for nine months far exceeds the inconvenience of a normal pregnancy.
Finally, abortion is not just letting an innocent person die, or taking them off of life support. Abortion is an active, violent form of killing. This is an admittedly less substantial objection than the others (since abortion would be objectionable even if the embryo or fetus were simply removed from the womb, alive, and then left to die). Nevertheless, the ethics of Jarvis' argument would be dramatically complicated if the violinist had to first be dismembered in order to be successfully removed. How many people could actually go with removing the violinist, if they had to first cut his body to pieces?!
The demands of pregnancy are real and significant, but they are temporary; they are on behalf of a helpless child, and they are perfectly natural. Moral philosophers can scheme to their hearts content, but it doesn't change the fact that abortion permanently takes away the most fundamental right of an innocent human being. And we're not talking about a disconnected stranger who has trespassed against the woman. We're talking about her very own child, a child who does not trespass to live and grow in her womb.
How Your Senators Voted on Cloture
Alabama: Sessions (R-AL), Nay Shelby (R-AL), Nay
Alaska: Begich (D-AK), Yea Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Arizona: Kyl (R-AZ), Nay McCain (R-AZ), Nay
Arkansas: Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Yea
California: Boxer (D-CA), Yea Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Colorado: Bennet (D-CO), Yea Udall (D-CO), Yea
Connecticut: Dodd (D-CT), Yea Lieberman (ID-CT), Yea
Delaware: Carper (D-DE), Yea Kaufman (D-DE), Yea
Florida: LeMieux (R-FL), Nay Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Georgia: Chambliss (R-GA), Yea Isakson (R-GA), Nay
Hawaii: Akaka (D-HI), Yea Inouye (D-HI), Yea
Idaho: Crapo (R-ID), Nay Risch (R-ID), Nay
Illinois: Burris (D-IL), Yea Durbin (D-IL), Yea
Indiana: Bayh (D-IN), Yea Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Iowa: Grassley (R-IA), Nay Harkin (D-IA), Yea
Kansas: Brownback (R-KS), Nay Roberts (R-KS), Nay
Kentucky: Bunning (R-KY), Nay McConnell (R-KY), Nay
Louisiana: Landrieu (D-LA), Yea Vitter (R-LA), Nay
Maine: Collins (R-ME), Yea Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Maryland: Cardin (D-MD), Yea Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Massachusetts: Kerry (D-MA), Yea Kirk (D-MA), Yea
Michigan: Levin (D-MI), Yea Stabenow (D-MI), Yea
Minnesota: Franken (D-MN), Yea Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Mississippi: Cochran (R-MS), Nay Wicker (R-MS), Nay
Missouri: Bond (R-MO), Nay McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
Montana: Baucus (D-MT), Yea Tester (D-MT), Yea
Nebraska: Johanns (R-NE), Nay Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Nevada: Ensign (R-NV), Nay Reid (D-NV), Yea
New Hampshire: Gregg (R-NH), Yea Shaheen (D-NH), Yea
New Jersey: Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
New Mexico: Bingaman (D-NM), Yea Udall (D-NM), Yea
New York: Gillibrand (D-NY), Yea Schumer (D-NY), Yea
North Carolina: Burr (R-NC), Nay Hagan (D-NC), Yea
North Dakota: Conrad (D-ND), Yea Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
Ohio: Brown (D-OH), Yea Voinovich (R-OH), Nay
Oklahoma: Coburn (R-OK), Nay Inhofe (R-OK), Nay
Oregon: Merkley (D-OR), Yea Wyden (D-OR), Yea
Pennsylvania: Casey (D-PA), Yea Specter (D-PA), Yea
Rhode Island: Reed (D-RI), Yea Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea
South Carolina: DeMint (R-SC), Nay Graham (R-SC), Nay
South Dakota: Johnson (D-SD), Yea Thune (R-SD), Yea
Tennessee: Alexander (R-TN), Yea Corker (R-TN), Nay
Texas: Cornyn (R-TX), Yea Hutchison (R-TX), Not Voting
Utah: Bennett (R-UT), Nay Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Vermont: Leahy (D-VT), Yea Sanders (I-VT), Yea
Virginia: Warner (D-VA), Yea Webb (D-VA), Yea
Washington: Cantwell (D-WA), Yea Murray (D-WA), Yea
West Virginia: Byrd (D-WV), Yea Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea
Wisconsin: Feingold (D-WI), Yea Kohl (D-WI), Yea
Wyoming: Barrasso (R-WY), Nay Enzi (R-WY), Nay
Alaska: Begich (D-AK), Yea Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Arizona: Kyl (R-AZ), Nay McCain (R-AZ), Nay
Arkansas: Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Yea
California: Boxer (D-CA), Yea Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Colorado: Bennet (D-CO), Yea Udall (D-CO), Yea
Connecticut: Dodd (D-CT), Yea Lieberman (ID-CT), Yea
Delaware: Carper (D-DE), Yea Kaufman (D-DE), Yea
Florida: LeMieux (R-FL), Nay Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Georgia: Chambliss (R-GA), Yea Isakson (R-GA), Nay
Hawaii: Akaka (D-HI), Yea Inouye (D-HI), Yea
Idaho: Crapo (R-ID), Nay Risch (R-ID), Nay
Illinois: Burris (D-IL), Yea Durbin (D-IL), Yea
Indiana: Bayh (D-IN), Yea Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Iowa: Grassley (R-IA), Nay Harkin (D-IA), Yea
Kansas: Brownback (R-KS), Nay Roberts (R-KS), Nay
Kentucky: Bunning (R-KY), Nay McConnell (R-KY), Nay
Louisiana: Landrieu (D-LA), Yea Vitter (R-LA), Nay
Maine: Collins (R-ME), Yea Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Maryland: Cardin (D-MD), Yea Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Massachusetts: Kerry (D-MA), Yea Kirk (D-MA), Yea
Michigan: Levin (D-MI), Yea Stabenow (D-MI), Yea
Minnesota: Franken (D-MN), Yea Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Mississippi: Cochran (R-MS), Nay Wicker (R-MS), Nay
Missouri: Bond (R-MO), Nay McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
Montana: Baucus (D-MT), Yea Tester (D-MT), Yea
Nebraska: Johanns (R-NE), Nay Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Nevada: Ensign (R-NV), Nay Reid (D-NV), Yea
New Hampshire: Gregg (R-NH), Yea Shaheen (D-NH), Yea
New Jersey: Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
New Mexico: Bingaman (D-NM), Yea Udall (D-NM), Yea
New York: Gillibrand (D-NY), Yea Schumer (D-NY), Yea
North Carolina: Burr (R-NC), Nay Hagan (D-NC), Yea
North Dakota: Conrad (D-ND), Yea Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
Ohio: Brown (D-OH), Yea Voinovich (R-OH), Nay
Oklahoma: Coburn (R-OK), Nay Inhofe (R-OK), Nay
Oregon: Merkley (D-OR), Yea Wyden (D-OR), Yea
Pennsylvania: Casey (D-PA), Yea Specter (D-PA), Yea
Rhode Island: Reed (D-RI), Yea Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea
South Carolina: DeMint (R-SC), Nay Graham (R-SC), Nay
South Dakota: Johnson (D-SD), Yea Thune (R-SD), Yea
Tennessee: Alexander (R-TN), Yea Corker (R-TN), Nay
Texas: Cornyn (R-TX), Yea Hutchison (R-TX), Not Voting
Utah: Bennett (R-UT), Nay Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Vermont: Leahy (D-VT), Yea Sanders (I-VT), Yea
Virginia: Warner (D-VA), Yea Webb (D-VA), Yea
Washington: Cantwell (D-WA), Yea Murray (D-WA), Yea
West Virginia: Byrd (D-WV), Yea Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea
Wisconsin: Feingold (D-WI), Yea Kohl (D-WI), Yea
Wyoming: Barrasso (R-WY), Nay Enzi (R-WY), Nay
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Disposing of the Dead, Part 4-Indignity Defined
A fetus is nothing! You won't get me to say I'm sorry for the fetus. Abortion is much more important than the life of a child that doesn't exist.
- Abortionist Howard I. Diamond.
Proaborts consider living preborn babies to be utterly worthless. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that they should find it morally acceptable to perform repulsive experiments upon them, dispose of them in landfills along with dead animals, ransack their organs, and even make them into paperweights and works of 'art.'
Pam Crosby, Clinical Coordinator at Prince George's Reproductive Health Services, showed the repulsive and utter indifference of experienced killers towards their helpless victims when she described how her clinic dumped second-trimester babies in its trash; 'For the most part it [fetal remains] is thrown out like in many doctors' offices. If you had a wart removed or whatever (chuckle) you could make that analogy."
Babies = Garbage.
It is very important to the proaborts to deny any vestige of humanity to the preborn, no matter how trivial. To allow them a decent and humane burial would be to admit that maybe the preborn should be accorded some dignity, and that maybe they do have intrinsic worth.
Marvin R. Weisberg operated a pathology laboratory in Santa Monica. His business went bankrupt, and a huge metal storage container in his backyard was repossessed as a result. A crane could not lift the box, so it was opened. It was crammed with 17,000 aborted babies weighing a total of three and a half tons. Weisberg also had 400 aborted babies stored in his house. 42 of these weighed five or more pounds.
Local prolife activists offered to bury the babies in a dignified and humane manner, but the American Civil Liberties Union and the Feminist Women's Health Centers filed suit to stop the burial, because, as they alleged, the preborn babies were only "unwanted biological tissue," and such burial would, of course, "violate the separation of Church and State."
In Wichita and in other cities, pro-lifers have discovered aborted preborn babies as large as six pounds (full-term) being burned as garbage along with dead dogs, cats, and birds thrown out by local Humane Society offices.
Such atrocities are becoming rare. An Austrian company manufactures tiny stainless-steel ovens that incinerate the corpses of the dead aborted babies cleanly and efficiently. More than half of its sales are to abortuaries in the United States.
Does anyone out there feel a chill wind from the past anymore?
Fetal Experimentation
Nazi doctors performed repulsive experiments upon concentration camp inmates during World War II. This 'research' included severing women's breasts (while they were still alive) in order to measure their fat content, immersing men in frigid water until they died in order to test the insulating capacity of flight suits, and injecting various poisons and viruses into victims.
Those possessing the Nazi mentality have had another half-century to refine their atrocities. Their helpless victims are now the preborn children of our country. Some of the experiments that abortionists perform on these babies are so repulsive that they seem to be almost unreal.
An anesthetist at Pittsburgh's Magee Women's Hospital described before the Pennsylvania Abortion Commission how third-trimester babies were deliberately aborted alive and then packed in ice for shipment to laboratories. She said that "It was repulsive to watch live fetuses being packed in ice while still moving and trying to breathe, then being rushed to a laboratory."
A Stanford doctor also testified that experiments included "slicing open the rib cage of a still-living human fetus in order to observe the heart action."
Other experiments have included severing the heads of preborn babies to measure gas flow across membranes and deliberately keeping late-term aborted preborn babies alive as long as possible in pressurized vessels for the purpose of researching extracorporeal gestation.
Dead Babies As Art.
It may seem impossible to believe, but some warped and twisted minds consider the sad little carcasses of aborted preborn babies suitable objects for jewelry and artwork for public display.
During the second half of the 1980s, several 'artists' "created" earrings and other forms of adornment that featured small preborn babies encased in plastic or plexiglass. These "works" were widely praised by art critics.[37]
In 1989, the "Helms Degenerate Art Show/Protest" at New York City's Black and White in Color gallery received a symbolic $500 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) subgrant from "Artist Space." This show featured Shawn Eichman's "Alchemy Cabinet," which displayed her own dismembered second-trimester aborted baby next to the obligatory twisted, bloody wire coat hanger. Eichman (no relation to Adolf) proudly described her display as "Degenerate with a capital 'D.'"
These displays were vigorously defended by the Art Establishment because all of the artists were pro-abortion and were transmitting a Neoliberal message. After Eichman's 'work' drew a barrage of protests, National Council on the Arts member Jacob Neusner proposed that the NEA adopt language prohibiting the funding of works of art that "utilize and part of an actual human embryo or fetus."
He was laughed at, and his proposal was defeated by the lopsided score of 10 to 2. Three council members privately said to him that "You can make beautiful earrings out of pieces of fetuses."
Of course, if aborted babies are in good condition, they can be very aesthetically pleasing. What better conversation piece to have on one's desk than a perfect little preborn child?
In 1976, investigators discovered that a Chicago biological supply firm was supplying bodies and organs of preborn aborted babies as paperweights. They charged $90 for the brain of a preborn $70 for a set of its lungs, and $60 for its intestines. An encased baby foot went for $70 and the complete 10-week baby cost $97.80.
How's that for 'freedom of choice?'
One of the most persistent lies of the proaborts is their very labeling of themselves as 'prochoice.'
The word 'choice' implies a decision made without undue pressure and with all pertinent facts available for inspection.
However, the proaborts fanatically resist any attempts to tell women about their preborn babies. Pro-life sidewalk counselors are assaulted, blocked, and sued in attempts to keep them from giving any information to women entering abortuaries. 'Doctors' and 'counselors' are instructed in manuals to deceive patients and to refuse to discuss the preborn baby. And Planned Parenthood and their detestable ilk battle any initiative or legislation requiring informed consent. Is it any wonder they don't want you to know what happens to an aborted baby after it has been murdered?
- Abortionist Howard I. Diamond.
Proaborts consider living preborn babies to be utterly worthless. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that they should find it morally acceptable to perform repulsive experiments upon them, dispose of them in landfills along with dead animals, ransack their organs, and even make them into paperweights and works of 'art.'
Pam Crosby, Clinical Coordinator at Prince George's Reproductive Health Services, showed the repulsive and utter indifference of experienced killers towards their helpless victims when she described how her clinic dumped second-trimester babies in its trash; 'For the most part it [fetal remains] is thrown out like in many doctors' offices. If you had a wart removed or whatever (chuckle) you could make that analogy."
Babies = Garbage.
It is very important to the proaborts to deny any vestige of humanity to the preborn, no matter how trivial. To allow them a decent and humane burial would be to admit that maybe the preborn should be accorded some dignity, and that maybe they do have intrinsic worth.
Marvin R. Weisberg operated a pathology laboratory in Santa Monica. His business went bankrupt, and a huge metal storage container in his backyard was repossessed as a result. A crane could not lift the box, so it was opened. It was crammed with 17,000 aborted babies weighing a total of three and a half tons. Weisberg also had 400 aborted babies stored in his house. 42 of these weighed five or more pounds.
Local prolife activists offered to bury the babies in a dignified and humane manner, but the American Civil Liberties Union and the Feminist Women's Health Centers filed suit to stop the burial, because, as they alleged, the preborn babies were only "unwanted biological tissue," and such burial would, of course, "violate the separation of Church and State."
In Wichita and in other cities, pro-lifers have discovered aborted preborn babies as large as six pounds (full-term) being burned as garbage along with dead dogs, cats, and birds thrown out by local Humane Society offices.
Such atrocities are becoming rare. An Austrian company manufactures tiny stainless-steel ovens that incinerate the corpses of the dead aborted babies cleanly and efficiently. More than half of its sales are to abortuaries in the United States.
Does anyone out there feel a chill wind from the past anymore?
Fetal Experimentation
Nazi doctors performed repulsive experiments upon concentration camp inmates during World War II. This 'research' included severing women's breasts (while they were still alive) in order to measure their fat content, immersing men in frigid water until they died in order to test the insulating capacity of flight suits, and injecting various poisons and viruses into victims.
Those possessing the Nazi mentality have had another half-century to refine their atrocities. Their helpless victims are now the preborn children of our country. Some of the experiments that abortionists perform on these babies are so repulsive that they seem to be almost unreal.
An anesthetist at Pittsburgh's Magee Women's Hospital described before the Pennsylvania Abortion Commission how third-trimester babies were deliberately aborted alive and then packed in ice for shipment to laboratories. She said that "It was repulsive to watch live fetuses being packed in ice while still moving and trying to breathe, then being rushed to a laboratory."
A Stanford doctor also testified that experiments included "slicing open the rib cage of a still-living human fetus in order to observe the heart action."
Other experiments have included severing the heads of preborn babies to measure gas flow across membranes and deliberately keeping late-term aborted preborn babies alive as long as possible in pressurized vessels for the purpose of researching extracorporeal gestation.
Dead Babies As Art.
It may seem impossible to believe, but some warped and twisted minds consider the sad little carcasses of aborted preborn babies suitable objects for jewelry and artwork for public display.
During the second half of the 1980s, several 'artists' "created" earrings and other forms of adornment that featured small preborn babies encased in plastic or plexiglass. These "works" were widely praised by art critics.[37]
In 1989, the "Helms Degenerate Art Show/Protest" at New York City's Black and White in Color gallery received a symbolic $500 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) subgrant from "Artist Space." This show featured Shawn Eichman's "Alchemy Cabinet," which displayed her own dismembered second-trimester aborted baby next to the obligatory twisted, bloody wire coat hanger. Eichman (no relation to Adolf) proudly described her display as "Degenerate with a capital 'D.'"
These displays were vigorously defended by the Art Establishment because all of the artists were pro-abortion and were transmitting a Neoliberal message. After Eichman's 'work' drew a barrage of protests, National Council on the Arts member Jacob Neusner proposed that the NEA adopt language prohibiting the funding of works of art that "utilize and part of an actual human embryo or fetus."
He was laughed at, and his proposal was defeated by the lopsided score of 10 to 2. Three council members privately said to him that "You can make beautiful earrings out of pieces of fetuses."
Of course, if aborted babies are in good condition, they can be very aesthetically pleasing. What better conversation piece to have on one's desk than a perfect little preborn child?
In 1976, investigators discovered that a Chicago biological supply firm was supplying bodies and organs of preborn aborted babies as paperweights. They charged $90 for the brain of a preborn $70 for a set of its lungs, and $60 for its intestines. An encased baby foot went for $70 and the complete 10-week baby cost $97.80.
How's that for 'freedom of choice?'
One of the most persistent lies of the proaborts is their very labeling of themselves as 'prochoice.'
The word 'choice' implies a decision made without undue pressure and with all pertinent facts available for inspection.
However, the proaborts fanatically resist any attempts to tell women about their preborn babies. Pro-life sidewalk counselors are assaulted, blocked, and sued in attempts to keep them from giving any information to women entering abortuaries. 'Doctors' and 'counselors' are instructed in manuals to deceive patients and to refuse to discuss the preborn baby. And Planned Parenthood and their detestable ilk battle any initiative or legislation requiring informed consent. Is it any wonder they don't want you to know what happens to an aborted baby after it has been murdered?
Disposing of the Dead-Part 3
via USCCB
A New Growth Industry: Baby Body Parts
Disposing of fetal remains poses a perennial challenge to abortion clinics. The last thing one wants is to leave evidence of mangled bodies that look all-too-human. Solutions to the disposal dilemma run the whole gamut from the truly repulsive to ... the unbelievably repulsive. Wichita's George Tiller, for example, is known for stoking an on-site incinerator with the days' work product, but the obvious parallels to Auschwitz probably discourage the widespread use of his "final solution."
Then there's Mayfair Women's Clinic in Aurora, Colorado where former owner-operator Dr. James J. Parks, M.D. reached what one had thought was the nadir of disposal practices: grinding buckets full of 15 to 22 weeks' gestation fetuses through a hand-cranked, old-fashioned meat grinder until they took the consistency of "multiple tubes of pink toothpaste," able to be flushed down sink drains. (Source: Affidavit of Curtis E. Stover, M.D., dated June 15, 1992, corroborated in depositions of Dr. Parks and clinic staff.)
Mayfair Women's Clinic is once again at ground zero for controversy over its disposal practices because now, it seems, the children aborted there are no longer "unwanted." They are, in fact, very much wanted by one of about five U.S. organizations which provide fetal organs and tissues to researchers. Mayfair is under contract with an intermediary called Anatomic Gift Foundation (AGF), headquartered in Laurel, Maryland, as a source and site for the harvesting and preparation of fetal organs and tissues for shipment to researchers. "The Harvest of Abortion" (by L. Vincent, World, Oct. 23, 1999) describes the lurid activities of AGF "technician" Ms.Ying Bei Wang who works on-site at Mayfair.
This article--and several other stories appearing in, for example, Insight (reprinted with permission in NRL News, October 12), The American Enterprise and Alberta Report Newsmagazine--relies heavily on evidence uncovered in the on-going investigation by Life Dynamics, Inc. (LDI) of Denton, Texas into unsavory and possibly illegal practices in fetal tissue trafficking by AGF and others. The LDI exposé unleashed a maelstrom, attracting not only the attention of the media, but also that of Congress.
On October 21, the Senate rejected (by a vote of 46-51) Sen. Bob Smith's last-minute amendment to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act--an amendment which would have required extensive reporting and disclosure of the details of procurement, transfer and research use of embryonic and fetal tissue obtained from induced abortions. But on November 9, the House of Representatives approved on a voice vote a "Sense of Congress Resolution" (H.Res. 350), sponsored by Congressmen Tom Tancredo, Chris Smith and Joe Pitts, calling for the House "to exercise oversight responsibility to conduct hearings concerning private companies that are involved in the trafficking of baby body parts." Hearings in the House Commerce Committee are expected in early 2000.
What's the Matter?
Now if it were just an issue of appropriate disposal of fetal remains, one might wonder what's the matter. While Dr. Parks's meat grinder is unspeakably revolting, clinically dissecting tissue for researchers may lead to the discovery of a life-saving cure. Are these children not, at least, being valued in death--a right denied them during their brief lives?
In answering that question, let's put aside for the moment two fundamental moral propositions acknowledged in any civilized society: that human beings are not to be exploited for the benefit of others, and that the deceased human body has a residual dignity based on what it embodied while alive.
Beyond these truths, an examination of the evidence accumulated by Life Dynamics, conversations with several key figures and experts, and documented facts about fetal tissue procurement and research published in the last decade raise many, many serious concerns.
For example, are abortionists who participate in tissue and organ "donation" altering their abortion procedures to best accomplish retrieval of the desired "fresh" organs without regard to what is safest for the mother?
Are procedures ever delayed (at greater risk to the mother) to obtain more fully developed (and thus more valuable) organs?
To what extent is the profit motive driving this business (in apparent violation of federal law proscribing the exchange of "valuable consideration")?
Is the need for "fresh" specimens pushing abortion into infanticide by promoting more intact partial-birth and live deliveries?
Can a mother ever properly consent to the donation of all or part of a child she has chosen to abort?
Are current practices for obtaining consent to donate informed, unpressured, solicited apart from consent to the abortion and subsequent to the abortion?
Will publicized claims of potential research benefits from the use of aborted fetuses be a significant, or even a deciding, factor for women conflicted over an abortion decision?
Will the research demand for a steady supply of fetal tissue "legitimize" abortion and further degrade the dignity of human life?
How big is the current and anticipated demand?
Will continued research using fetal organs and tissues outpace the supply available in the U.S., driving up demand in developing countries where economic pressures on the world's poorest people could lead to even greater exploitation of their bodies and their children?
Specifically, what parts of the governing federal law (Part G of Title IV of the Public Health Services Act [42 U.S.C. 289g-1 and 289g-2]) are being violated or circumvented and what corrective action is necessary?
The LDI Evidence Examined
For the benefit of those who have not closely followed published reports, here is a precis of the evidence made public by Life Dynamics.
LDI's evidence includes the following:
a videotaped conversation with "Kelly" (a pseudonym) who claims to have been on the AGF payroll, harvesting fetal tissue inside an unidentified abortion clinic affiliated with Planned Parenthood;
excerpts of telephone conversations with Mrs. Brenda Bardsley (AGF president and co-founder with her husband James Bardsley) and with Dr. Miles Jones, founder and president of AGF competitor, Opening Lines (OL), late of West Frankfort, Illinois;
a collection of about fifty "protocols" or purchase orders from medical researchers which list the fetal organs and tissues needed, frequency needed, and the details of retrieval, preparation for shipment and delivery;
copies of AGF's and OL's fee-for-services schedules; and
OL's aggressively cheerful marketing brochure, explaining to prospective parts suppliers in the abortion industry "HOW YOU CAN TURN YOUR PATIENT'S DECISION INTO SOMETHING WONDERFUL."
Kelly's description of her job and the business of AGF is credible and seems to be corroborated in the protocols. Many of them stipulate that organ retrieval must be accomplished within 10 or 20 minutes of the cessation of blood circulation. This makes it reasonable to assume that some methods of "abortion" are preferred to others. Death by digoxin injection, by saline induction or by dismemberment are probably "out." Death by partial-birth or live intact delivery are probably "in," however, there is no direct evidence of this assumption in the protocols. She also describes the process of ruling out children with congenital anomalies or exposure to STDs to satisfy the requests for perfect tissue often spelled out in the protocols. Kelly also gives an eyewitness account of an abortionist drowning newly delivered, still living twins (at 24 weeks' gestation) after she refused to begin harvesting their organs before they were dead. She alluded to other children brought for dissection while their hearts were still beating and others, up to 30 weeks' gestation, who were killed after full delivery. Again, there is no independent proof that these episodes occurred.
The telephone conversation between Mrs. Bardsley and LDI (which she admits took place while maintaining that some of her answers were "misunderstood") discusses the founding with her husband of a predecessor corporation, the International Institute for the Advancement of Medicine (IIAM), their subsequent founding of AGF when IIAM withdrew from fetal tissue procurement, how the system of fetal purchasing works with AGF paying a "site fee" for the use of space inside a source clinic, as well as a flat fee for gross dissection and preparation of fetal specimens (based on trimester gestational age) and serology testing, and how to avoid problems in overnight shipping by using intentionally vague descriptions of contents.
She confirmed these details with us, and they are consistent with the printed fee schedule, as well as with past statements by her husband which had been reported by the media.
Opening Lines: Volume Discounter
Many of the comments made by Dr. Miles Jones to an investigator whom he assumed was a potential research client (a recording of which LDI has made available), relate to OL's fee schedule, financial arrangements with abortion clinics and his aggressive search for sources of fetal organs and tissue in Mexico and Canada. The conversation is consistent with OL's brochure and minutely detailed fee schedule ranging from, on the low end, spleens, ears and eyes for a little as $50 ("40% discount for single eye"), to the pricey gonads for $550, "Intact trunk (with/without limbs)" for $500, "Intact embryonic cadaver ($ 8 weeks)" for $600 and a "Brain (# 8 weeks)" for $999, but "30% discount if significantly fragmented."
Dr. Jones is currently unreachable. Soon after September 10, 1999 when The Daily American, the local paper of West Frankfort, Illinois where OL was headquartered, devoted a banner headline and front-page treatment to his business, Dr. Jones disappeared, OL phone lines were disconnected and the doors padlocked. An employee of OL who was a long-time resident of the small town also decamped. To confound matters further, the paper's managing editor left town shortly after the story appeared (leaving no forwarding number on his home phone line) and, we are told, almost the entire editorial staff is now gone. The new editor, only three weeks on the job, claims to have no information about any of them.
Although Dr. Jones left town in a hurry, he apparently has no intention of leaving the business. We have learned that he has sent letters to clients and former clients soliciting their continued patronage at a new location.
The Protocols of Requisitioning Babies' Organs
The protocols furnished by LDI, seeking organs and tissues from one or more Planned Parenthood clinics, cover a time frame from 1988 to 1998. Most seek parts from donor-babies whose gestational age is up to 24 weeks (sometimes followed by a + sign). The need for quick retrieval and preparation to ensure tissue freshness is evident in at least several orders. Reading the brief descriptions of "tissue use/significance" provides a glimpse into an Orwellian future where human tissue is engrafted into mice, creating "SCID-hu mice" and alternatively used in "primate implantation" for the "creation of human-monkey chimeras."
Breaking News
In an attempt to verify some of the published reports through telephone calls and Internet searches, we discovered new information.
ITEM 1: We obtained a copy of a seven page "Application and Agreement for Human Tissue Research/Education," dated November 10, 1998, between Anatomic Gift Foundation and Gary J. Miller, Professor of Pathology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. For his research in human prostate cancer, Dr. Miller ordered "1st and 2nd trimester prostates" in the quantity of "approximately 12 from each trimester per year." Under "Condition of Tissue requested," Dr. Miller specified "To be removed and prepared within 5 minutes ... after circulation has stopped" (emphasis added).
Other specifications state that the prostates are to be "preserved on wet ice," "picked up immediately by applicant," have "low risk no IV drug abuse or known sexually transmitted diseases" and no prescription medications used by "donor" mother. The contract is signed both by Dr. Miller and, for the Regents of the University of Colorado, by "Sharon Frazier, Director of Purchasing" (emphasis added).
Is it a coincidence that the AGF satellite office is just down the road from Dr. Miller?
ITEM 2: AGF president Brenda Bardsley, reached at AGF offices in White Oak, Georgia and 13-year employee Joe Paparo who works out of AGF's Laurel, Maryland office, were congenial, seemingly candid and eager to set the record straight. Both estimate that only about 10% of AGF's current business involves fetal tissue, the balance being in adult organ donation. They claim to have been using only two abortion clinics as sources for some time--the Mayfair Women's Center and an unnamed clinic in Kansas, but they now use only Mayfair. They both confided that AGF plans to phase that operation out, too. Although AGF's annual revenues have climbed to $2 million in 1998 from $180,000 in 1994, Mrs. Bardsley attributes the windfall to expansion of their adult organ donation business.
Both report that AGF's dealings in fetal tissue are a break-even proposition at best. A credible point is that their three-tiered fee schedule (first trimester specimen from induced abortion, 2nd trimester specimen from induced abortion and miscarriage or stillbirth at any age) reflects not the market value of the tissue, but more closely reflects the actual costs and effort of retrieval.
They both explain that the fetal organ/tissue business declined following the firing of a former "technician" who left with AGF's client list and expertise. This blackguard is alleged to have teamed up with Dr. Jones in the formation of Opening Lines, but was subsequently fired by Jones as well, they claim. In the past few months, several researchers who had been long-time customers of AGF switched over to OL, explaining to Mrs. Bardsley that OL supplies their needs much more consistently. She takes this to mean that OL has secured many sources for organs and tissues from second trimester abortions. The World article quotes an estimate by Dr. Jones that OL's parent company, Consultative and Diagnostic Pathology, "processes an average of 1,500 fetal-tissue cases per day."
ITEM 3: Alan G. Fantel, Ph.D., of the University of Washington (Seattle) Department of Pediatrics and Central Laboratory for Human Embryology (CLHE), has had the misfortune of being listed on a National Institutes of Health (NIH) website as the contact person in charge of the government's clearinghouse for "human embryonic and fetal tissues." Since the fetal tissue procurement story broke, Dr. Fantel has been inundated with inquiries about the nature of NIH involvement. We learned that the clearinghouse is still operating, but business has dropped to about 10-15 embryos or fetuses per week. His office has a grant from NIH to accept tissues from hospitals and abortion clinics and to distribute them to grant-funded sites (excluding for-profits like pharmaceutical companies). He alluded to a non-profit corporation in California "supplying pharmaceuticals." Over the past 35 years, CLHE has supplied several hundred laboratories. Many researchers now, however, are seeking older fetuses and few of these are being sent to CLHE. Those they get are "completely fragmented. Almost everything into the 2nd trimester have tissues that are macerated from potassium chloride." Dr. Fantel speculated that the declining volume of usable fetuses may be the result of RU-486 use. We pointed out the still limited use of RU-486 in U.S. trials, and suggested that CLHE business may have been redirected to suppliers like Opening Lines whose brochure brazenly promises "a convenient and efficient way for researchers to receive fetal tissue without a lot of bureaucracy" (emphasis added).
So it seems clear that the success of Opening Lines may explain in part the declining business fortunes of two major players in the fetal tissue supply field, AGF and CLHE. But the market demand seems insatiable. An industry analyst points to a projected annual growth of 13.5% in the demand for fetal tissue and cell lines, and put corporate revenues from the global market in 1996 at $428 million. He estimates that they'll reach $1 billion annually by 2002.
Cui bono?
Item 4: Our search uncovered the identity of another wholesaler in fetal tissue and organs: Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (ABR), located in Alameda, California. Linda K. Tracy, the chagrined (to have been located) founder and president of ABR, took our phone call and conceded that her company acts as an intermediary in the "acquisition" of fetal organs and tissues from abortion sites and delivery to researchers. Beyond that, Ms. Tracy refused to elaborate on the business, other than assuring us of the importance of the research and the insignificance of using tissue that's already dead. All the "hoopla" is because of the abortion issue because, she says, people think donations of fetal tissue will encourage abortion, as if women made up their minds on that basis. We had hoped to afford her the opportunity of explaining how ABR's practices comport perfectly with federal law, but she declined further invitations to comment.
Confirmation of ABR's involvement was provided by Dr. John F. Krowka, an immunologist with the California Department of Health Services in Berkeley, who named ABR as one of the "brokers" from which he has obtained fetal tissue. His protocol--requesting livers, thymuses, and skin for use, inter alia, in creating SCID-hu mice--is included in the LDI packet.
A discussion of the philosophical issues--surrounding topics such as (1) consent to donate the organs of a next-of-kin whom one is about to have killed, (2) the respect due human bodies even in death (viz. Sophocles' Antigone, righteous indignation over "mass graves," extraordinary efforts by governments to recover the bodies of those fallen in overseas combat), and (3) complicity of the medical profession in the killing of innocents as articulated and condemned during proceedings of the Nuremberg War Crimes TribunalCmust await another occasion. But we would like to touch upon two points, if only briefly.
First, might abortionists alter the way they do abortions to obtain fresh tissue even to the detriment of the woman undergoing the abortion? It's surely not unthinkable. Reported procedures performed in Sweden (O. Lindval and A. Bjorkland) and Mexico (I. Madrazo et al. in Archives of Neurology, 47, 1281-2), describe precisely how women were given abortions under general anesthesia rather than local, and with techniques that took three to four times longer than usual. At least in the case of the Swedish team, the extraction of fetal brain tissue was the event that killed the then live child in utero. A Florida doctor (who wished to remain anonymous) has discussed an abortion procedure he uses to obtain the best and freshest tissue. It takes four to five times longer to perform than the normal vacuum aspiration, increasing the likelihood of pain, discomfort and infection.
Dr. Kathi Aultman, an ob/gyn in Florida, explained that her decision to speak out against partial-birth abortion was prompted by a fear that the demand for fetal tissue would push more and more doctors into using this far riskier procedure on their patients. And she offered an interesting observation: she increasingly hears abortion practitioners describe partial-birth abortion or other mostly intact delivery as a "D & E" (dilation and evacuation). D & E had been the term used exclusively to describe in utero dismemberment of the fetus, followed by extraction of fetal parts. She believes that lines are being intentionally blurred so that, even if partial-birth abortion were banned, abortionists would be able to continue the procedure under the other name. Indeed, a 1990 Redbook article talks about AGF's James Bardsley who "advertises for doctors who use a technique called dilation and evacuation (D&E), in which the fetus is essentially pulled out of the anesthetized woman. Because the fetus is alive when the abortion [read delivery] begins, 'some doctors are squeamish about D&E's,' Bardsley says. But he cannot use fetuses aborted by the more common second-trimester method ... because 'we need tissue that is fairly fresh. We have to process the tissue within minutes of the time of death'" (G. Kolata, "Miracle or Menace?" Redbook, Sept. 1990).
Second, could the knowledge that one's aborted child might further research to find a cure for a debilitating disease influence a woman's decision to go ahead with an abortion? Certainly, that would rarely be the primary reason why a woman would choose to abort her child. But a 1995 Canadian study found that seventeen percent of respondents who said they might consider having an abortion if pregnant agreed that they would be more likely to have an abortion if the tissue of their aborted child could be used for fetal transplant research. (D.K. Martin et al., "Fetal Tissue Transplantation and Abortion Decisions: A Survey of Urban Women," Canadian Medical Association Journal, Sept. 1, 1995, p.545.)
On the basis of the practices and concerns discussed above, it would seem time for a thorough examination of current arrangements, existing legal restraints and a thoughtful dialogue on whether any type of research using tissue obtained from induced abortions can be conducted in a manner befitting the dignity of these vulnerable deceased human beings. We welcome Congressional efforts in that direction.
Appeals Courts Split on Partial-Birth Abortion
This fall, two U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals have issued long-awaited decisions on state legislation banning partial-birth abortion. On September 24, 1999, the Eighth Circuit declared that partial-birth abortion bans enacted in Iowa, Nebraska and Arkansas are unconstitutional. A three-judge panel ruled unanimously in each of the three cases (Planned Parenthood v. Miller, Carhart v. Stenberg, and Little Rock Family Planning Services v. Jegley). On October 26, the Seventh Circuit released a 5-4 en banc ruling upholding bans on partial-birth abortion enacted in Illinois and Wisconsin (Hope Clinic v. Ryan, below).
Given these divergent rulings by appellate courts in substantially similar cases, newspaper accounts predict certain review by the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the conflict. Although such a conflict generally prompts Supreme Court review, it is not inevitable.
The Justices could deny review, for example, on the basis that the apparent disparity in rulings on identical or similar state statutes is only superficial. They could claim that the highest court of each state can interpret the relevant statutory languageCusing its state's own "rules of statutory construction"--in a way that creates no actual conflict between the rulings.
By way of example, let's assume that the State of Affirmative has previously interpreted the phrase "substantial portion" to mean a large-ish percentage of one undivided thing. When "substantial portion" is used in the law banning partial-birth abortion, Affirmative's state supreme court understands the law to ban a type of abortion in which a living, intact child is substantially delivered outside the mother's womb before the abortionist takes steps to directly kill the child. Courts in the State of Denial, in contrast, have interpreted the phrase "substantial portion" to mean either a large percentage of one undivided thing or a large severed portion of something that had been, but is no longer, whole. Denial's state supreme court might then find an identically-worded ban on partial-birth abortion to apply also to an abortion in which the child is dismembered in utero, but still alive at the moment when an arm or leg is extracted from the womb. And so, the first appeals court could uphold Affirmative's ban and a second appeals court could reject Denial's ban without creating an actual conflict.
There is another reason one should not be overly optimistic about imminent Supreme Court review of these decisions: the Court has avoided reviewing abortion-related cases--either by declining to grant certiorari or by disposing of cases summarily, without oral argument, briefs or a written opinion.
The Eighth Circuit's opinions are not entirely bleak. That court interpreted "substantial portion" of a living fetus to include a severed arm or leg. Thus, in the opinion of the three-judge panel, a dismemberment abortion (D&E or dilation and evacuation) in which a severed limb is pulled through the mother's birth canal, while the mutilated child is still barely alive in the uterus, could be covered under the partial-birth abortion ban. Likewise, an abortionist performing the standard first-trimester suction curettage abortion would also be covered if the tiny child's heart is still beating for a few moments after the child is vacuumed out of the uterus. To arrive at this overly broad reading of a provision intended to target only partial-birth abortions, the panel had to reject an argument made by the states to defend the laws. The states argued that provisions in the statutes requiring both knowledge and a criminal intent to kill a partially delivered child narrowed the offense to partial-birth abortion and eliminated other types of abortions.
By including the most common pre-viability abortion procedures in the scope of the ban, the panel was able to claim that the laws imposed an "undue burden" on a woman's "privacy right" to have an abortion prior to the child's viability.
It may be argued that the panel erred by invalidating state laws without giving the states' highest courts an opportunity to construe them in a way that might cure any constitutional defects. In fact, the Supreme Court could accept review of these decisions and overturn them solely on that basis, without reaching the underlying issue of the constitutionality of a ban on partial-birth abortion. That underlying issue was not addressed by the Eighth Circuit. Nor did the court address the alleged necessity of a health exception to such bans. Nor did it decide whether a state can ban the killing of a child by any means after part or all of the child is in the birth canal, or when part of the child is entirely outside the mother. So the Eighth Circuit opinions do not expand Roe v. Wade to encompass extra-uterine killing; they merely apply Roe standards (invalidly, we would argue) to the language used in a partial-birth abortion ban because they interpret that language to cover other types of pre-viability abortions.
By contrast, the Seventh Circuit concluded that it is up to state courts to settle questions about statutory construction, and that the Illinois and Wisconsin statutes can be construed so as not to violate the U.S. Constitution. The Attorneys General of both states advised the Court that the bans were intended to apply only to partial-birth abortions and would be enforced accordingly. Judge Easterbrook, writing the majority opinion, agreed that it is not improper rewriting of the statutes to confine the offense to the one intended and commonly understood.
Concerning the alleged need for a "health exception" to the ban, Judge Easterbrook did not go so far as to say that partial-birth abortions are either within, or beyond, the scope of Roe. Arguably, the standards set in that case are confined to "unborn children," and do not apply to children in the process of being delivered. But the opinion looks at Planned Parenthood v. Casey's standard--a restriction on abortion without a health exception would be an "undue burden" on a woman's right to an abortion--and concludes that the absence of a health exception cannot be considered an undue burden "when the procedure in question lacks demonstrable health benefits." In other words, a ban on partial-birth abortion does not need an exception for cases where the mother's health would be put at greater risk by a different method, because partial-birth abortion has not been shown ever to be necessary or safer than other methods in any circumstance.
The Seventh Circuit decision marks a clear and welcome departure from the direction of most lower court decisions, which have been finding bans on partial-birth abortion unconstitutional--either by applying Roe and Casey, or by finding the definition of partial-birth abortion "vague."
Short of waiting for Supreme Court review and a definitive ruling on the validity and scope of Roe and Casey, another way to ban partial-birth abortion may be to adopt a law along the lines taken by North Dakota this year. The new law prohibits "intentionally caus[ing] the death of a living intact fetus while that living intact fetus is partially born." It explicitly excludes "sharp curettage and suction curettage abortion" as defined in the Act. It also defines "partially born" as follows:
'Partially born' means the living intact fetus's body, with the entire head attached, is delivered so that any of the following has occurred:
The living intact fetus's entire head, in the case of a cephalic presentation, or any portion of the living intact fetus's torso above the navel, in the case of a breech presentation, is delivered past the mother's vaginal opening; or
The living intact fetus's entire head, in the case of a cephalic presentation, or any portion of the living intact fetus's torso above the navel, in the case of a breech presentation, is delivered outside the mother's abdominal wall.
It seems certain that this language could pass constitutional muster and effectively ban partial-birth abortion. But considering how far along the road to infanticide some abortionists have already traveled (if we are to believe new evidence on fetal tissue and organ procurement), one wonders whether any statute can now stop the descent into widespread infanticide. Only daunting criminal penalties for violating such a ban, and effective oversight of clinic practices, might reverse this appalling trend.
A New Growth Industry: Baby Body Parts
Disposing of fetal remains poses a perennial challenge to abortion clinics. The last thing one wants is to leave evidence of mangled bodies that look all-too-human. Solutions to the disposal dilemma run the whole gamut from the truly repulsive to ... the unbelievably repulsive. Wichita's George Tiller, for example, is known for stoking an on-site incinerator with the days' work product, but the obvious parallels to Auschwitz probably discourage the widespread use of his "final solution."
Then there's Mayfair Women's Clinic in Aurora, Colorado where former owner-operator Dr. James J. Parks, M.D. reached what one had thought was the nadir of disposal practices: grinding buckets full of 15 to 22 weeks' gestation fetuses through a hand-cranked, old-fashioned meat grinder until they took the consistency of "multiple tubes of pink toothpaste," able to be flushed down sink drains. (Source: Affidavit of Curtis E. Stover, M.D., dated June 15, 1992, corroborated in depositions of Dr. Parks and clinic staff.)
Mayfair Women's Clinic is once again at ground zero for controversy over its disposal practices because now, it seems, the children aborted there are no longer "unwanted." They are, in fact, very much wanted by one of about five U.S. organizations which provide fetal organs and tissues to researchers. Mayfair is under contract with an intermediary called Anatomic Gift Foundation (AGF), headquartered in Laurel, Maryland, as a source and site for the harvesting and preparation of fetal organs and tissues for shipment to researchers. "The Harvest of Abortion" (by L. Vincent, World, Oct. 23, 1999) describes the lurid activities of AGF "technician" Ms.Ying Bei Wang who works on-site at Mayfair.
This article--and several other stories appearing in, for example, Insight (reprinted with permission in NRL News, October 12), The American Enterprise and Alberta Report Newsmagazine--relies heavily on evidence uncovered in the on-going investigation by Life Dynamics, Inc. (LDI) of Denton, Texas into unsavory and possibly illegal practices in fetal tissue trafficking by AGF and others. The LDI exposé unleashed a maelstrom, attracting not only the attention of the media, but also that of Congress.
On October 21, the Senate rejected (by a vote of 46-51) Sen. Bob Smith's last-minute amendment to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act--an amendment which would have required extensive reporting and disclosure of the details of procurement, transfer and research use of embryonic and fetal tissue obtained from induced abortions. But on November 9, the House of Representatives approved on a voice vote a "Sense of Congress Resolution" (H.Res. 350), sponsored by Congressmen Tom Tancredo, Chris Smith and Joe Pitts, calling for the House "to exercise oversight responsibility to conduct hearings concerning private companies that are involved in the trafficking of baby body parts." Hearings in the House Commerce Committee are expected in early 2000.
What's the Matter?
Now if it were just an issue of appropriate disposal of fetal remains, one might wonder what's the matter. While Dr. Parks's meat grinder is unspeakably revolting, clinically dissecting tissue for researchers may lead to the discovery of a life-saving cure. Are these children not, at least, being valued in death--a right denied them during their brief lives?
In answering that question, let's put aside for the moment two fundamental moral propositions acknowledged in any civilized society: that human beings are not to be exploited for the benefit of others, and that the deceased human body has a residual dignity based on what it embodied while alive.
Beyond these truths, an examination of the evidence accumulated by Life Dynamics, conversations with several key figures and experts, and documented facts about fetal tissue procurement and research published in the last decade raise many, many serious concerns.
For example, are abortionists who participate in tissue and organ "donation" altering their abortion procedures to best accomplish retrieval of the desired "fresh" organs without regard to what is safest for the mother?
Are procedures ever delayed (at greater risk to the mother) to obtain more fully developed (and thus more valuable) organs?
To what extent is the profit motive driving this business (in apparent violation of federal law proscribing the exchange of "valuable consideration")?
Is the need for "fresh" specimens pushing abortion into infanticide by promoting more intact partial-birth and live deliveries?
Can a mother ever properly consent to the donation of all or part of a child she has chosen to abort?
Are current practices for obtaining consent to donate informed, unpressured, solicited apart from consent to the abortion and subsequent to the abortion?
Will publicized claims of potential research benefits from the use of aborted fetuses be a significant, or even a deciding, factor for women conflicted over an abortion decision?
Will the research demand for a steady supply of fetal tissue "legitimize" abortion and further degrade the dignity of human life?
How big is the current and anticipated demand?
Will continued research using fetal organs and tissues outpace the supply available in the U.S., driving up demand in developing countries where economic pressures on the world's poorest people could lead to even greater exploitation of their bodies and their children?
Specifically, what parts of the governing federal law (Part G of Title IV of the Public Health Services Act [42 U.S.C. 289g-1 and 289g-2]) are being violated or circumvented and what corrective action is necessary?
The LDI Evidence Examined
For the benefit of those who have not closely followed published reports, here is a precis of the evidence made public by Life Dynamics.
LDI's evidence includes the following:
a videotaped conversation with "Kelly" (a pseudonym) who claims to have been on the AGF payroll, harvesting fetal tissue inside an unidentified abortion clinic affiliated with Planned Parenthood;
excerpts of telephone conversations with Mrs. Brenda Bardsley (AGF president and co-founder with her husband James Bardsley) and with Dr. Miles Jones, founder and president of AGF competitor, Opening Lines (OL), late of West Frankfort, Illinois;
a collection of about fifty "protocols" or purchase orders from medical researchers which list the fetal organs and tissues needed, frequency needed, and the details of retrieval, preparation for shipment and delivery;
copies of AGF's and OL's fee-for-services schedules; and
OL's aggressively cheerful marketing brochure, explaining to prospective parts suppliers in the abortion industry "HOW YOU CAN TURN YOUR PATIENT'S DECISION INTO SOMETHING WONDERFUL."
Kelly's description of her job and the business of AGF is credible and seems to be corroborated in the protocols. Many of them stipulate that organ retrieval must be accomplished within 10 or 20 minutes of the cessation of blood circulation. This makes it reasonable to assume that some methods of "abortion" are preferred to others. Death by digoxin injection, by saline induction or by dismemberment are probably "out." Death by partial-birth or live intact delivery are probably "in," however, there is no direct evidence of this assumption in the protocols. She also describes the process of ruling out children with congenital anomalies or exposure to STDs to satisfy the requests for perfect tissue often spelled out in the protocols. Kelly also gives an eyewitness account of an abortionist drowning newly delivered, still living twins (at 24 weeks' gestation) after she refused to begin harvesting their organs before they were dead. She alluded to other children brought for dissection while their hearts were still beating and others, up to 30 weeks' gestation, who were killed after full delivery. Again, there is no independent proof that these episodes occurred.
The telephone conversation between Mrs. Bardsley and LDI (which she admits took place while maintaining that some of her answers were "misunderstood") discusses the founding with her husband of a predecessor corporation, the International Institute for the Advancement of Medicine (IIAM), their subsequent founding of AGF when IIAM withdrew from fetal tissue procurement, how the system of fetal purchasing works with AGF paying a "site fee" for the use of space inside a source clinic, as well as a flat fee for gross dissection and preparation of fetal specimens (based on trimester gestational age) and serology testing, and how to avoid problems in overnight shipping by using intentionally vague descriptions of contents.
She confirmed these details with us, and they are consistent with the printed fee schedule, as well as with past statements by her husband which had been reported by the media.
Opening Lines: Volume Discounter
Many of the comments made by Dr. Miles Jones to an investigator whom he assumed was a potential research client (a recording of which LDI has made available), relate to OL's fee schedule, financial arrangements with abortion clinics and his aggressive search for sources of fetal organs and tissue in Mexico and Canada. The conversation is consistent with OL's brochure and minutely detailed fee schedule ranging from, on the low end, spleens, ears and eyes for a little as $50 ("40% discount for single eye"), to the pricey gonads for $550, "Intact trunk (with/without limbs)" for $500, "Intact embryonic cadaver ($ 8 weeks)" for $600 and a "Brain (# 8 weeks)" for $999, but "30% discount if significantly fragmented."
Dr. Jones is currently unreachable. Soon after September 10, 1999 when The Daily American, the local paper of West Frankfort, Illinois where OL was headquartered, devoted a banner headline and front-page treatment to his business, Dr. Jones disappeared, OL phone lines were disconnected and the doors padlocked. An employee of OL who was a long-time resident of the small town also decamped. To confound matters further, the paper's managing editor left town shortly after the story appeared (leaving no forwarding number on his home phone line) and, we are told, almost the entire editorial staff is now gone. The new editor, only three weeks on the job, claims to have no information about any of them.
Although Dr. Jones left town in a hurry, he apparently has no intention of leaving the business. We have learned that he has sent letters to clients and former clients soliciting their continued patronage at a new location.
The Protocols of Requisitioning Babies' Organs
The protocols furnished by LDI, seeking organs and tissues from one or more Planned Parenthood clinics, cover a time frame from 1988 to 1998. Most seek parts from donor-babies whose gestational age is up to 24 weeks (sometimes followed by a + sign). The need for quick retrieval and preparation to ensure tissue freshness is evident in at least several orders. Reading the brief descriptions of "tissue use/significance" provides a glimpse into an Orwellian future where human tissue is engrafted into mice, creating "SCID-hu mice" and alternatively used in "primate implantation" for the "creation of human-monkey chimeras."
Breaking News
In an attempt to verify some of the published reports through telephone calls and Internet searches, we discovered new information.
ITEM 1: We obtained a copy of a seven page "Application and Agreement for Human Tissue Research/Education," dated November 10, 1998, between Anatomic Gift Foundation and Gary J. Miller, Professor of Pathology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. For his research in human prostate cancer, Dr. Miller ordered "1st and 2nd trimester prostates" in the quantity of "approximately 12 from each trimester per year." Under "Condition of Tissue requested," Dr. Miller specified "To be removed and prepared within 5 minutes ... after circulation has stopped" (emphasis added).
Other specifications state that the prostates are to be "preserved on wet ice," "picked up immediately by applicant," have "low risk no IV drug abuse or known sexually transmitted diseases" and no prescription medications used by "donor" mother. The contract is signed both by Dr. Miller and, for the Regents of the University of Colorado, by "Sharon Frazier, Director of Purchasing" (emphasis added).
Is it a coincidence that the AGF satellite office is just down the road from Dr. Miller?
ITEM 2: AGF president Brenda Bardsley, reached at AGF offices in White Oak, Georgia and 13-year employee Joe Paparo who works out of AGF's Laurel, Maryland office, were congenial, seemingly candid and eager to set the record straight. Both estimate that only about 10% of AGF's current business involves fetal tissue, the balance being in adult organ donation. They claim to have been using only two abortion clinics as sources for some time--the Mayfair Women's Center and an unnamed clinic in Kansas, but they now use only Mayfair. They both confided that AGF plans to phase that operation out, too. Although AGF's annual revenues have climbed to $2 million in 1998 from $180,000 in 1994, Mrs. Bardsley attributes the windfall to expansion of their adult organ donation business.
Both report that AGF's dealings in fetal tissue are a break-even proposition at best. A credible point is that their three-tiered fee schedule (first trimester specimen from induced abortion, 2nd trimester specimen from induced abortion and miscarriage or stillbirth at any age) reflects not the market value of the tissue, but more closely reflects the actual costs and effort of retrieval.
They both explain that the fetal organ/tissue business declined following the firing of a former "technician" who left with AGF's client list and expertise. This blackguard is alleged to have teamed up with Dr. Jones in the formation of Opening Lines, but was subsequently fired by Jones as well, they claim. In the past few months, several researchers who had been long-time customers of AGF switched over to OL, explaining to Mrs. Bardsley that OL supplies their needs much more consistently. She takes this to mean that OL has secured many sources for organs and tissues from second trimester abortions. The World article quotes an estimate by Dr. Jones that OL's parent company, Consultative and Diagnostic Pathology, "processes an average of 1,500 fetal-tissue cases per day."
ITEM 3: Alan G. Fantel, Ph.D., of the University of Washington (Seattle) Department of Pediatrics and Central Laboratory for Human Embryology (CLHE), has had the misfortune of being listed on a National Institutes of Health (NIH) website as the contact person in charge of the government's clearinghouse for "human embryonic and fetal tissues." Since the fetal tissue procurement story broke, Dr. Fantel has been inundated with inquiries about the nature of NIH involvement. We learned that the clearinghouse is still operating, but business has dropped to about 10-15 embryos or fetuses per week. His office has a grant from NIH to accept tissues from hospitals and abortion clinics and to distribute them to grant-funded sites (excluding for-profits like pharmaceutical companies). He alluded to a non-profit corporation in California "supplying pharmaceuticals." Over the past 35 years, CLHE has supplied several hundred laboratories. Many researchers now, however, are seeking older fetuses and few of these are being sent to CLHE. Those they get are "completely fragmented. Almost everything into the 2nd trimester have tissues that are macerated from potassium chloride." Dr. Fantel speculated that the declining volume of usable fetuses may be the result of RU-486 use. We pointed out the still limited use of RU-486 in U.S. trials, and suggested that CLHE business may have been redirected to suppliers like Opening Lines whose brochure brazenly promises "a convenient and efficient way for researchers to receive fetal tissue without a lot of bureaucracy" (emphasis added).
So it seems clear that the success of Opening Lines may explain in part the declining business fortunes of two major players in the fetal tissue supply field, AGF and CLHE. But the market demand seems insatiable. An industry analyst points to a projected annual growth of 13.5% in the demand for fetal tissue and cell lines, and put corporate revenues from the global market in 1996 at $428 million. He estimates that they'll reach $1 billion annually by 2002.
Cui bono?
Item 4: Our search uncovered the identity of another wholesaler in fetal tissue and organs: Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (ABR), located in Alameda, California. Linda K. Tracy, the chagrined (to have been located) founder and president of ABR, took our phone call and conceded that her company acts as an intermediary in the "acquisition" of fetal organs and tissues from abortion sites and delivery to researchers. Beyond that, Ms. Tracy refused to elaborate on the business, other than assuring us of the importance of the research and the insignificance of using tissue that's already dead. All the "hoopla" is because of the abortion issue because, she says, people think donations of fetal tissue will encourage abortion, as if women made up their minds on that basis. We had hoped to afford her the opportunity of explaining how ABR's practices comport perfectly with federal law, but she declined further invitations to comment.
Confirmation of ABR's involvement was provided by Dr. John F. Krowka, an immunologist with the California Department of Health Services in Berkeley, who named ABR as one of the "brokers" from which he has obtained fetal tissue. His protocol--requesting livers, thymuses, and skin for use, inter alia, in creating SCID-hu mice--is included in the LDI packet.
A discussion of the philosophical issues--surrounding topics such as (1) consent to donate the organs of a next-of-kin whom one is about to have killed, (2) the respect due human bodies even in death (viz. Sophocles' Antigone, righteous indignation over "mass graves," extraordinary efforts by governments to recover the bodies of those fallen in overseas combat), and (3) complicity of the medical profession in the killing of innocents as articulated and condemned during proceedings of the Nuremberg War Crimes TribunalCmust await another occasion. But we would like to touch upon two points, if only briefly.
First, might abortionists alter the way they do abortions to obtain fresh tissue even to the detriment of the woman undergoing the abortion? It's surely not unthinkable. Reported procedures performed in Sweden (O. Lindval and A. Bjorkland) and Mexico (I. Madrazo et al. in Archives of Neurology, 47, 1281-2), describe precisely how women were given abortions under general anesthesia rather than local, and with techniques that took three to four times longer than usual. At least in the case of the Swedish team, the extraction of fetal brain tissue was the event that killed the then live child in utero. A Florida doctor (who wished to remain anonymous) has discussed an abortion procedure he uses to obtain the best and freshest tissue. It takes four to five times longer to perform than the normal vacuum aspiration, increasing the likelihood of pain, discomfort and infection.
Dr. Kathi Aultman, an ob/gyn in Florida, explained that her decision to speak out against partial-birth abortion was prompted by a fear that the demand for fetal tissue would push more and more doctors into using this far riskier procedure on their patients. And she offered an interesting observation: she increasingly hears abortion practitioners describe partial-birth abortion or other mostly intact delivery as a "D & E" (dilation and evacuation). D & E had been the term used exclusively to describe in utero dismemberment of the fetus, followed by extraction of fetal parts. She believes that lines are being intentionally blurred so that, even if partial-birth abortion were banned, abortionists would be able to continue the procedure under the other name. Indeed, a 1990 Redbook article talks about AGF's James Bardsley who "advertises for doctors who use a technique called dilation and evacuation (D&E), in which the fetus is essentially pulled out of the anesthetized woman. Because the fetus is alive when the abortion [read delivery] begins, 'some doctors are squeamish about D&E's,' Bardsley says. But he cannot use fetuses aborted by the more common second-trimester method ... because 'we need tissue that is fairly fresh. We have to process the tissue within minutes of the time of death'" (G. Kolata, "Miracle or Menace?" Redbook, Sept. 1990).
Second, could the knowledge that one's aborted child might further research to find a cure for a debilitating disease influence a woman's decision to go ahead with an abortion? Certainly, that would rarely be the primary reason why a woman would choose to abort her child. But a 1995 Canadian study found that seventeen percent of respondents who said they might consider having an abortion if pregnant agreed that they would be more likely to have an abortion if the tissue of their aborted child could be used for fetal transplant research. (D.K. Martin et al., "Fetal Tissue Transplantation and Abortion Decisions: A Survey of Urban Women," Canadian Medical Association Journal, Sept. 1, 1995, p.545.)
On the basis of the practices and concerns discussed above, it would seem time for a thorough examination of current arrangements, existing legal restraints and a thoughtful dialogue on whether any type of research using tissue obtained from induced abortions can be conducted in a manner befitting the dignity of these vulnerable deceased human beings. We welcome Congressional efforts in that direction.
Appeals Courts Split on Partial-Birth Abortion
This fall, two U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals have issued long-awaited decisions on state legislation banning partial-birth abortion. On September 24, 1999, the Eighth Circuit declared that partial-birth abortion bans enacted in Iowa, Nebraska and Arkansas are unconstitutional. A three-judge panel ruled unanimously in each of the three cases (Planned Parenthood v. Miller, Carhart v. Stenberg, and Little Rock Family Planning Services v. Jegley). On October 26, the Seventh Circuit released a 5-4 en banc ruling upholding bans on partial-birth abortion enacted in Illinois and Wisconsin (Hope Clinic v. Ryan, below).
Given these divergent rulings by appellate courts in substantially similar cases, newspaper accounts predict certain review by the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the conflict. Although such a conflict generally prompts Supreme Court review, it is not inevitable.
The Justices could deny review, for example, on the basis that the apparent disparity in rulings on identical or similar state statutes is only superficial. They could claim that the highest court of each state can interpret the relevant statutory languageCusing its state's own "rules of statutory construction"--in a way that creates no actual conflict between the rulings.
By way of example, let's assume that the State of Affirmative has previously interpreted the phrase "substantial portion" to mean a large-ish percentage of one undivided thing. When "substantial portion" is used in the law banning partial-birth abortion, Affirmative's state supreme court understands the law to ban a type of abortion in which a living, intact child is substantially delivered outside the mother's womb before the abortionist takes steps to directly kill the child. Courts in the State of Denial, in contrast, have interpreted the phrase "substantial portion" to mean either a large percentage of one undivided thing or a large severed portion of something that had been, but is no longer, whole. Denial's state supreme court might then find an identically-worded ban on partial-birth abortion to apply also to an abortion in which the child is dismembered in utero, but still alive at the moment when an arm or leg is extracted from the womb. And so, the first appeals court could uphold Affirmative's ban and a second appeals court could reject Denial's ban without creating an actual conflict.
There is another reason one should not be overly optimistic about imminent Supreme Court review of these decisions: the Court has avoided reviewing abortion-related cases--either by declining to grant certiorari or by disposing of cases summarily, without oral argument, briefs or a written opinion.
The Eighth Circuit's opinions are not entirely bleak. That court interpreted "substantial portion" of a living fetus to include a severed arm or leg. Thus, in the opinion of the three-judge panel, a dismemberment abortion (D&E or dilation and evacuation) in which a severed limb is pulled through the mother's birth canal, while the mutilated child is still barely alive in the uterus, could be covered under the partial-birth abortion ban. Likewise, an abortionist performing the standard first-trimester suction curettage abortion would also be covered if the tiny child's heart is still beating for a few moments after the child is vacuumed out of the uterus. To arrive at this overly broad reading of a provision intended to target only partial-birth abortions, the panel had to reject an argument made by the states to defend the laws. The states argued that provisions in the statutes requiring both knowledge and a criminal intent to kill a partially delivered child narrowed the offense to partial-birth abortion and eliminated other types of abortions.
By including the most common pre-viability abortion procedures in the scope of the ban, the panel was able to claim that the laws imposed an "undue burden" on a woman's "privacy right" to have an abortion prior to the child's viability.
It may be argued that the panel erred by invalidating state laws without giving the states' highest courts an opportunity to construe them in a way that might cure any constitutional defects. In fact, the Supreme Court could accept review of these decisions and overturn them solely on that basis, without reaching the underlying issue of the constitutionality of a ban on partial-birth abortion. That underlying issue was not addressed by the Eighth Circuit. Nor did the court address the alleged necessity of a health exception to such bans. Nor did it decide whether a state can ban the killing of a child by any means after part or all of the child is in the birth canal, or when part of the child is entirely outside the mother. So the Eighth Circuit opinions do not expand Roe v. Wade to encompass extra-uterine killing; they merely apply Roe standards (invalidly, we would argue) to the language used in a partial-birth abortion ban because they interpret that language to cover other types of pre-viability abortions.
By contrast, the Seventh Circuit concluded that it is up to state courts to settle questions about statutory construction, and that the Illinois and Wisconsin statutes can be construed so as not to violate the U.S. Constitution. The Attorneys General of both states advised the Court that the bans were intended to apply only to partial-birth abortions and would be enforced accordingly. Judge Easterbrook, writing the majority opinion, agreed that it is not improper rewriting of the statutes to confine the offense to the one intended and commonly understood.
Concerning the alleged need for a "health exception" to the ban, Judge Easterbrook did not go so far as to say that partial-birth abortions are either within, or beyond, the scope of Roe. Arguably, the standards set in that case are confined to "unborn children," and do not apply to children in the process of being delivered. But the opinion looks at Planned Parenthood v. Casey's standard--a restriction on abortion without a health exception would be an "undue burden" on a woman's right to an abortion--and concludes that the absence of a health exception cannot be considered an undue burden "when the procedure in question lacks demonstrable health benefits." In other words, a ban on partial-birth abortion does not need an exception for cases where the mother's health would be put at greater risk by a different method, because partial-birth abortion has not been shown ever to be necessary or safer than other methods in any circumstance.
The Seventh Circuit decision marks a clear and welcome departure from the direction of most lower court decisions, which have been finding bans on partial-birth abortion unconstitutional--either by applying Roe and Casey, or by finding the definition of partial-birth abortion "vague."
Short of waiting for Supreme Court review and a definitive ruling on the validity and scope of Roe and Casey, another way to ban partial-birth abortion may be to adopt a law along the lines taken by North Dakota this year. The new law prohibits "intentionally caus[ing] the death of a living intact fetus while that living intact fetus is partially born." It explicitly excludes "sharp curettage and suction curettage abortion" as defined in the Act. It also defines "partially born" as follows:
'Partially born' means the living intact fetus's body, with the entire head attached, is delivered so that any of the following has occurred:
The living intact fetus's entire head, in the case of a cephalic presentation, or any portion of the living intact fetus's torso above the navel, in the case of a breech presentation, is delivered past the mother's vaginal opening; or
The living intact fetus's entire head, in the case of a cephalic presentation, or any portion of the living intact fetus's torso above the navel, in the case of a breech presentation, is delivered outside the mother's abdominal wall.
It seems certain that this language could pass constitutional muster and effectively ban partial-birth abortion. But considering how far along the road to infanticide some abortionists have already traveled (if we are to believe new evidence on fetal tissue and organ procurement), one wonders whether any statute can now stop the descent into widespread infanticide. Only daunting criminal penalties for violating such a ban, and effective oversight of clinic practices, might reverse this appalling trend.
Those Inconvenient Bodies-Disposing of the Aborted Part 2
This is an excerpt from the book Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory provided by Priests for Life. This chapter details the recovery of thousands of the bodies of thousands of aborted babies.
Chapter Thirteen
"Truth. What Does that Mean?"
I think we are in rats’ alley where the dead men lost their bones.
(T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland)
When we pulled our cars slowly into the dark alley behind the Michigan Avenue Medical Center, rats scurried before our headlights, frightened by the noise of our intrusion. Our three-vehicle caravan parked in the alley off Monroe Street in downtown Chicago. We stopped in front of a loading dock upon which stood three garbage dumpsters and a filthy blue-colored trash barrel. The abortion clinic's address, "30 So.," was crudely painted on the barrel in white lettering. It had rained in the Loop earlier that day, causing the alley pavement to shine with a slimy oil. The filth and stench of rotting garbage nearly overwhelmed the eight of us, that included Tim Murphy, Peter Krump, Andy Scholberg, Jerry McCarthy, Joe Scheidler and a pathologist from Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke's hospital.
We climbed onto the loading dock, opened the dumpsters, and began to search through the trash. I opened a red dumpster and yanked out one or two bags of garbage from the Michigan Avenue Medical Center. I peered into the bottom of the dumpster and saw a bag that was baby blue in color. As I hauled the bag out it was heavier than the others. I rested it on the loading dock and opened it. The top was stuffed with used and bloody surgical paper. At the very bottom was a small, heavy cardboard box. It was about the size of two shoe boxes and was sealed in silver duct tape. I carefully cradled the box in my arms and placed it in the back seat of one of the cars. Jerry, Tim and Peter put all of the other bags back into the dumpster, arranging them to look as though nothing had been disturbed. As we pulled out of the alley the rats again darted in front of our headlights. I watched one scamper across the top of a dumpster as our car made its way down the wet and slimy path and out into the street.
We drove to Joe Scheidler's garage to examine the contents of the box, first setting it on a table beneath a bright light. We all gathered around the table as Peter carefully peeled off the silver duct tape and opened the flaps of the box. Inside were small plastic "specimen" bags. Each bag contained the remains of an aborted baby with placenta and uterine tissue. We took the bags out and laid them on the table. There were forty-three of them in all which represented about three or four days worth of abortions at the Michigan Avenue Medical Center.
Several bags were marked with the name of the aborted baby's mother, her age, the gestational age of the fetal child, the date of the abortion and a number. We thought the number represented the number of abortions performed at the center since January 1, 1987. On this Saturday night, March 14, 1987, the number was in the three thousands. The pathologist in our company, who had many years of experience in handling the bodies of aborted as well as miscarried fetal children, said that most of the forty-three were between six and fourteen weeks of gestation. Despite the small size of the fetal remains, their tiny arms, legs, hands, feet, rib cages, spinal columns, eyes (floating free out of their sockets) bits of skull tissue and sometimes even an intact face were plainly visible through the plastic windows of the specimen bags, looming up through their murky liquid world of formalin and blood like the inky prophecies of a Magic 8 Ball.
At the very bottom of the box lay a plastic bag that was different from the others. It was a clear plastic bag, much larger and heavier than the others. I took the oblong-shaped bag into my hands to examine it. It was stuffed full with a material I could not recognize. I turned the bag over and over in my hands, but I had no idea what my eyes gazed upon. I began to grow fearful and apprehensive about this mysterious parcel. At last my eyes made sense of a shape pressed against the plastic--a shape familiar to me yet completely unfamiliar. I saw an arm--a very large arm. Then I saw another arm and then a foot, a full inch in length.
I had looked at those arms all these many seconds but I did not see them as arms because I had no prior mental category by which my brain could recognize them. They were dismembered arms of a completely torn and mutilated body and, up until that day, my eye had never seen such a reality through which this eviscerated corpse could speak to me. It was as if an alien stranger spoke a word to me I did not at first understand until finally, after much straining to listen to the foreign tongue, I at last comprehended his message. But actually, in this case, I did not even know a language was being spoken--the silent language of this child who spoke to me the shocking word of his broken body--a language legal abortion meant to silence at the bottom of a trash container.
We took the remains out of the bag, separated the limbs that had become enmeshed in the placenta and assembled the body parts. The child, a boy, was at least six months gestational age, perhaps even older. He had been killed by the D and E (dilation and evacuation) abortion method. His body was well formed and muscular. His red and purple veins could be seen through his translucent skin. Regaldo S. Florendo, the clinic's owner and abortionist, saw every body part as he literally tore the fetal child limb from limb and removed the parts from the womb. The clinic seemed to want to hide this child as he lay on the very bottom of the box buried beneath others who shared a similar fate. And, unlike his unwanted brothers and sisters, not a single piece of identifying information was scribbled on his plastic burial shroud. Not only was his life wiped out, but the clinic seemed intent upon wiping out his identity as well--as if, unlike the others, this one never had, a name, a mother, an age, a date of death--an existence. It is possible that Florendo felt he had blundered somehow in the performance of this abortion upon a late-term baby and in panic needed to cover it up. Perhaps he made a mistake in calculating the unborn child's age, started the abortion, and once begun, believed he had no choice but to see, what was certainly for him, the more than usual grisly deed completed.
Andy Scholberg took photos of this fetal child. Joe Scheidler stared at the hideous corpse for a moment. He then turned around and went into his house. He said he could not look at him any more. [Photos of this baby]
This was not the first night we had retrieved the bodies of aborted children from the garbage dumpster behind the Michigan Avenue Medical Center and it would not be the last. The retrieval efforts began on February 28, 1987 and lasted until April 25. In those two months we recovered about five hundred bodies. We probably missed some of the now familiar silver duct taped boxes. Tim Murphy sometimes went to the alley twice a week and came out with a box taken from the trash.
I became involved in the retrievals after receiving a call from Jerry McCarthy, who had gone on the first retrieval mission. Joe Scheidler found out about the trash dumpster babies in a most unexpected way. A man who did the advertising layouts for the abortion clinic, such as the one that appeared in the Chicago Yellow Pages, had a falling-out with the clinic management. He knew the clinic disposed of the fetal remains in the dumpster behind the building. To get back at the management, the disgruntled employee first contacted Tom Bressler, who operated a crisis pregnancy center three doors north of the abortion clinic. The clinic's advertising man thought pro-lifers might wish to retrieve the fetal remains and do some advertising of their own--advertising that would bring negative publicity to the clinic. Tom Bressler called Joe and told him where he could find the bodies.
Week after week, I trekked from Milwaukee to the alley off Monroe Street in the dead of night to find the bodies of aborted babies. My good friend Edmund and I often went together. He and I spent hours painstakingly photographing the broken bodies with our makeshift photography studio set up either in his small apartment or mine. The powerful closeup lenses we learned to use revealed the beauty and poignancy of these fetal humans that no amount of crushing or dismemberment could entirely erase. My eyes could still behold the glory of the human being even in their crushed bodies, a glory traced within them by the creative hand of God. All of those involved with the retrieval believed it was utterly imperative that a photographic record of the aborted babies be made. We literally had in our hands the victims of a holocaust. Millions of preborn human beings had perished already since 1973, and the vast majority would never be seen. We meant for our photos to be a testimony to the humanity of the unborn killed by legalized abortion. We hoped that if we showed the photos to the public or to women headed toward the door of an abortion center, these children might save others. The photographs also were important because they proved that these children actually did live, however briefly, and were killed by a horrendous violence that literally trampled their humanity. The photos documented the brutality they had endured.
Finding the babies in the trash was like coming upon a secret. Most Americans know abortions are legal and that they occur. But for the vast majority, the fetus is a non-entity, something not real. As long as the victims are hidden, abortion remains separate from actual killing. Our photos are meant to shake people into the reality of abortion.
I was now living an unusual life, digging through trash dumpsters on a Chicago loading dock and picking the bodies of human beings out of the trash. I kept boxes of aborted children in my closet draped with a rosary. My mind was now forever etched with the memory of hundreds of torn, crushed, broken bodies--with blood, intestines, and torn skin. I came to know some of those bodies very well since I spent so much time trying to get the photographs just right. I named some of the children. David was the largest whom Andy had photographed in Joe's garage. I had a five-month-old who, from skin tones and facial features, appeared to be black. He or she was killed by the dilation and evacuation method. Unlike most of the fetal children, the face of this baby was almost entirely intact. The baby's lower jaw was missing; but except for one eyeball missing from the socket, this was a most beautiful, well-formed face. The eye was missing as the result of the force of the skull being crushed, something the abortionist had to do to remove the head from the womb. The back of the fetal baby's head was totally caved in. I called this one "Baby Face."
Perhaps more than the sight of the bodies, the smell of formalin remained in my memory. The aborted babies were packed in a twenty percent formalin solution. The odor was sharp and penetrating; it made my eyes water and irritated my nostrils. Because I often exposed myself to the bodies to photograph them, after a time the inside of my nostrils and sinuses became dry and burnt.
Tim Murphy, Peter Krump, Edmund and I would rendezvous at nine or ten o'clock on a Saturday night at Blackie's, a bar on the south end of the Loop--a bar popular with young singles. Sometimes earlier in the week Tim would have gone by himself to the Michigan Avenue Medical Center trash dumpster and retrieved a box of babies. One night Edmund, Peter and I sat at a table at Blackies waiting for Tim to arrive. When he did, he walked into the bar carrying a large paper bag concealing the smallish, duct-taped cardboard box that contained the bodies of aborted babies. He had found the box in the dumpster on Wednesday and brought it to the bar to give it to Edmund and me to photograph the remains.
At first we were humored by Tim's brazenness. But then, to say the least, we all felt ill at ease with the box sitting on the table in the hip singles bar. I was also struck by something else. Young, attractive men and women professionals drank beer and Screwdrivers, played pin ball, watched sports programs, talked and laughed while in their very midst lay the hidden remains of aborted children. The tragedy of what the box contained clashed so completely with the noisy, rock music-filled, worldly gaiety of this place. The box of aborted babies thrust into the swanky bar was a kind of silent indictment of the sort of world the bar represented--the world so completely oblivious to the rejection of the aborted child
Chapter Thirteen
"Truth. What Does that Mean?"
I think we are in rats’ alley where the dead men lost their bones.
(T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland)
When we pulled our cars slowly into the dark alley behind the Michigan Avenue Medical Center, rats scurried before our headlights, frightened by the noise of our intrusion. Our three-vehicle caravan parked in the alley off Monroe Street in downtown Chicago. We stopped in front of a loading dock upon which stood three garbage dumpsters and a filthy blue-colored trash barrel. The abortion clinic's address, "30 So.," was crudely painted on the barrel in white lettering. It had rained in the Loop earlier that day, causing the alley pavement to shine with a slimy oil. The filth and stench of rotting garbage nearly overwhelmed the eight of us, that included Tim Murphy, Peter Krump, Andy Scholberg, Jerry McCarthy, Joe Scheidler and a pathologist from Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke's hospital.
We climbed onto the loading dock, opened the dumpsters, and began to search through the trash. I opened a red dumpster and yanked out one or two bags of garbage from the Michigan Avenue Medical Center. I peered into the bottom of the dumpster and saw a bag that was baby blue in color. As I hauled the bag out it was heavier than the others. I rested it on the loading dock and opened it. The top was stuffed with used and bloody surgical paper. At the very bottom was a small, heavy cardboard box. It was about the size of two shoe boxes and was sealed in silver duct tape. I carefully cradled the box in my arms and placed it in the back seat of one of the cars. Jerry, Tim and Peter put all of the other bags back into the dumpster, arranging them to look as though nothing had been disturbed. As we pulled out of the alley the rats again darted in front of our headlights. I watched one scamper across the top of a dumpster as our car made its way down the wet and slimy path and out into the street.
We drove to Joe Scheidler's garage to examine the contents of the box, first setting it on a table beneath a bright light. We all gathered around the table as Peter carefully peeled off the silver duct tape and opened the flaps of the box. Inside were small plastic "specimen" bags. Each bag contained the remains of an aborted baby with placenta and uterine tissue. We took the bags out and laid them on the table. There were forty-three of them in all which represented about three or four days worth of abortions at the Michigan Avenue Medical Center.
Several bags were marked with the name of the aborted baby's mother, her age, the gestational age of the fetal child, the date of the abortion and a number. We thought the number represented the number of abortions performed at the center since January 1, 1987. On this Saturday night, March 14, 1987, the number was in the three thousands. The pathologist in our company, who had many years of experience in handling the bodies of aborted as well as miscarried fetal children, said that most of the forty-three were between six and fourteen weeks of gestation. Despite the small size of the fetal remains, their tiny arms, legs, hands, feet, rib cages, spinal columns, eyes (floating free out of their sockets) bits of skull tissue and sometimes even an intact face were plainly visible through the plastic windows of the specimen bags, looming up through their murky liquid world of formalin and blood like the inky prophecies of a Magic 8 Ball.
At the very bottom of the box lay a plastic bag that was different from the others. It was a clear plastic bag, much larger and heavier than the others. I took the oblong-shaped bag into my hands to examine it. It was stuffed full with a material I could not recognize. I turned the bag over and over in my hands, but I had no idea what my eyes gazed upon. I began to grow fearful and apprehensive about this mysterious parcel. At last my eyes made sense of a shape pressed against the plastic--a shape familiar to me yet completely unfamiliar. I saw an arm--a very large arm. Then I saw another arm and then a foot, a full inch in length.
I had looked at those arms all these many seconds but I did not see them as arms because I had no prior mental category by which my brain could recognize them. They were dismembered arms of a completely torn and mutilated body and, up until that day, my eye had never seen such a reality through which this eviscerated corpse could speak to me. It was as if an alien stranger spoke a word to me I did not at first understand until finally, after much straining to listen to the foreign tongue, I at last comprehended his message. But actually, in this case, I did not even know a language was being spoken--the silent language of this child who spoke to me the shocking word of his broken body--a language legal abortion meant to silence at the bottom of a trash container.
We took the remains out of the bag, separated the limbs that had become enmeshed in the placenta and assembled the body parts. The child, a boy, was at least six months gestational age, perhaps even older. He had been killed by the D and E (dilation and evacuation) abortion method. His body was well formed and muscular. His red and purple veins could be seen through his translucent skin. Regaldo S. Florendo, the clinic's owner and abortionist, saw every body part as he literally tore the fetal child limb from limb and removed the parts from the womb. The clinic seemed to want to hide this child as he lay on the very bottom of the box buried beneath others who shared a similar fate. And, unlike his unwanted brothers and sisters, not a single piece of identifying information was scribbled on his plastic burial shroud. Not only was his life wiped out, but the clinic seemed intent upon wiping out his identity as well--as if, unlike the others, this one never had, a name, a mother, an age, a date of death--an existence. It is possible that Florendo felt he had blundered somehow in the performance of this abortion upon a late-term baby and in panic needed to cover it up. Perhaps he made a mistake in calculating the unborn child's age, started the abortion, and once begun, believed he had no choice but to see, what was certainly for him, the more than usual grisly deed completed.
Andy Scholberg took photos of this fetal child. Joe Scheidler stared at the hideous corpse for a moment. He then turned around and went into his house. He said he could not look at him any more. [Photos of this baby]
This was not the first night we had retrieved the bodies of aborted children from the garbage dumpster behind the Michigan Avenue Medical Center and it would not be the last. The retrieval efforts began on February 28, 1987 and lasted until April 25. In those two months we recovered about five hundred bodies. We probably missed some of the now familiar silver duct taped boxes. Tim Murphy sometimes went to the alley twice a week and came out with a box taken from the trash.
I became involved in the retrievals after receiving a call from Jerry McCarthy, who had gone on the first retrieval mission. Joe Scheidler found out about the trash dumpster babies in a most unexpected way. A man who did the advertising layouts for the abortion clinic, such as the one that appeared in the Chicago Yellow Pages, had a falling-out with the clinic management. He knew the clinic disposed of the fetal remains in the dumpster behind the building. To get back at the management, the disgruntled employee first contacted Tom Bressler, who operated a crisis pregnancy center three doors north of the abortion clinic. The clinic's advertising man thought pro-lifers might wish to retrieve the fetal remains and do some advertising of their own--advertising that would bring negative publicity to the clinic. Tom Bressler called Joe and told him where he could find the bodies.
Week after week, I trekked from Milwaukee to the alley off Monroe Street in the dead of night to find the bodies of aborted babies. My good friend Edmund and I often went together. He and I spent hours painstakingly photographing the broken bodies with our makeshift photography studio set up either in his small apartment or mine. The powerful closeup lenses we learned to use revealed the beauty and poignancy of these fetal humans that no amount of crushing or dismemberment could entirely erase. My eyes could still behold the glory of the human being even in their crushed bodies, a glory traced within them by the creative hand of God. All of those involved with the retrieval believed it was utterly imperative that a photographic record of the aborted babies be made. We literally had in our hands the victims of a holocaust. Millions of preborn human beings had perished already since 1973, and the vast majority would never be seen. We meant for our photos to be a testimony to the humanity of the unborn killed by legalized abortion. We hoped that if we showed the photos to the public or to women headed toward the door of an abortion center, these children might save others. The photographs also were important because they proved that these children actually did live, however briefly, and were killed by a horrendous violence that literally trampled their humanity. The photos documented the brutality they had endured.
Finding the babies in the trash was like coming upon a secret. Most Americans know abortions are legal and that they occur. But for the vast majority, the fetus is a non-entity, something not real. As long as the victims are hidden, abortion remains separate from actual killing. Our photos are meant to shake people into the reality of abortion.
I was now living an unusual life, digging through trash dumpsters on a Chicago loading dock and picking the bodies of human beings out of the trash. I kept boxes of aborted children in my closet draped with a rosary. My mind was now forever etched with the memory of hundreds of torn, crushed, broken bodies--with blood, intestines, and torn skin. I came to know some of those bodies very well since I spent so much time trying to get the photographs just right. I named some of the children. David was the largest whom Andy had photographed in Joe's garage. I had a five-month-old who, from skin tones and facial features, appeared to be black. He or she was killed by the dilation and evacuation method. Unlike most of the fetal children, the face of this baby was almost entirely intact. The baby's lower jaw was missing; but except for one eyeball missing from the socket, this was a most beautiful, well-formed face. The eye was missing as the result of the force of the skull being crushed, something the abortionist had to do to remove the head from the womb. The back of the fetal baby's head was totally caved in. I called this one "Baby Face."
Perhaps more than the sight of the bodies, the smell of formalin remained in my memory. The aborted babies were packed in a twenty percent formalin solution. The odor was sharp and penetrating; it made my eyes water and irritated my nostrils. Because I often exposed myself to the bodies to photograph them, after a time the inside of my nostrils and sinuses became dry and burnt.
Tim Murphy, Peter Krump, Edmund and I would rendezvous at nine or ten o'clock on a Saturday night at Blackie's, a bar on the south end of the Loop--a bar popular with young singles. Sometimes earlier in the week Tim would have gone by himself to the Michigan Avenue Medical Center trash dumpster and retrieved a box of babies. One night Edmund, Peter and I sat at a table at Blackies waiting for Tim to arrive. When he did, he walked into the bar carrying a large paper bag concealing the smallish, duct-taped cardboard box that contained the bodies of aborted babies. He had found the box in the dumpster on Wednesday and brought it to the bar to give it to Edmund and me to photograph the remains.
At first we were humored by Tim's brazenness. But then, to say the least, we all felt ill at ease with the box sitting on the table in the hip singles bar. I was also struck by something else. Young, attractive men and women professionals drank beer and Screwdrivers, played pin ball, watched sports programs, talked and laughed while in their very midst lay the hidden remains of aborted children. The tragedy of what the box contained clashed so completely with the noisy, rock music-filled, worldly gaiety of this place. The box of aborted babies thrust into the swanky bar was a kind of silent indictment of the sort of world the bar represented--the world so completely oblivious to the rejection of the aborted child
Disposing of the Aborted-Part 1
Much has been said about the injustice of abortion, but the fact that the injustice continues after the abortion is seldom discussed and rarely admitted by the proaborts. Not only is the aborted child afforded no dignity in life, it is also denied him or her after death. Murdered, torn to pieces, dead with no name, no burial. no funeral, and no one mourning them. Effectively wiped from existence as though they were never here. But they were here.
Here are a few insights from former clinic workers on methods of disposing of fetal remains:
Former clinic workers on what happens to the baby after:
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At the time I worked there, they only did first trimester abortions; they didn't have the facilities to do second trimester abortions. But oftentimes, second trimester abortions were performed and these babies we would not put in the little jar with the label to send off to the pathology lab. We would put them down a flushing toilet. They had a toilet that was mounted to the wall, and it was a continually flushing toilet; it didn't have a lid or a handle. That's where we would put those babies. They knew they couldn't turn them in or they were going to be found out that they were doing abortions which were too late term...The ones that were small enough, which would be 12-13 weeks or less, we would put in a jar, label them, and put them in a big box to go off to the pathology lab.
Former clinic worker Kathy Sparks
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"It's never a baby. They [the clinic workers] can't admit it themselves when they go in the back and have little 6-week fetuses, babies that they put down disposals, and that's how we did it in our clinic. The clinics in Dallas use disposals so none of those crazy Pro-Lifers will come and get them out of the trash anymore and bury them the way they did."
Carol Everett
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"We would take it out of the little sac [the mesh bag that collects fetal remains in a suction abortion] and lay it in the pan. The doctor would then come in and examine it. If he felt that it was adequate enough tissue, we would take the baby, put it into a jar and send it to the lab if the mother had insurance. If she had no insurance, the baby was simply put down the garbage disposal."
Former clinic worker Deborah Henry
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abortion clinic nurse Nan Patton Harrison discussed how she would be asked to baptize the aborted fetuses for women having abortions.
"Perhaps it was because of my empathy that they always asked me to do the baptism. It is difficult to do."
She then goes on to relate the difficulty of finding a small aborted baby among the remains of uterine lining and placenta in an abortion's aftermath. She describes one 'baptism:'
"After I baptized the fetus, I flushed it down the hopper."
From Catherine Whitney Whose Life: A Balanced, Comprehensive View of Abortion from it's Historical Content to the Current Debate (New York: William Morrow & Company) 1991 p 205
Here are a few insights from former clinic workers on methods of disposing of fetal remains:
Former clinic workers on what happens to the baby after:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the time I worked there, they only did first trimester abortions; they didn't have the facilities to do second trimester abortions. But oftentimes, second trimester abortions were performed and these babies we would not put in the little jar with the label to send off to the pathology lab. We would put them down a flushing toilet. They had a toilet that was mounted to the wall, and it was a continually flushing toilet; it didn't have a lid or a handle. That's where we would put those babies. They knew they couldn't turn them in or they were going to be found out that they were doing abortions which were too late term...The ones that were small enough, which would be 12-13 weeks or less, we would put in a jar, label them, and put them in a big box to go off to the pathology lab.
Former clinic worker Kathy Sparks
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It's never a baby. They [the clinic workers] can't admit it themselves when they go in the back and have little 6-week fetuses, babies that they put down disposals, and that's how we did it in our clinic. The clinics in Dallas use disposals so none of those crazy Pro-Lifers will come and get them out of the trash anymore and bury them the way they did."
Carol Everett
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We would take it out of the little sac [the mesh bag that collects fetal remains in a suction abortion] and lay it in the pan. The doctor would then come in and examine it. If he felt that it was adequate enough tissue, we would take the baby, put it into a jar and send it to the lab if the mother had insurance. If she had no insurance, the baby was simply put down the garbage disposal."
Former clinic worker Deborah Henry
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abortion clinic nurse Nan Patton Harrison discussed how she would be asked to baptize the aborted fetuses for women having abortions.
"Perhaps it was because of my empathy that they always asked me to do the baptism. It is difficult to do."
She then goes on to relate the difficulty of finding a small aborted baby among the remains of uterine lining and placenta in an abortion's aftermath. She describes one 'baptism:'
"After I baptized the fetus, I flushed it down the hopper."
From Catherine Whitney Whose Life: A Balanced, Comprehensive View of Abortion from it's Historical Content to the Current Debate (New York: William Morrow & Company) 1991 p 205
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