Baby Killers

October 23, 2012 By 72 Comments

On this blog we have had some people who call themselves ‘pro choice’. They give the usual argument that they want abortion to be ‘safe, rare and legal.’ They explain how most abortions happen in the first trimester when the fetus is simply a blob of cells. They remind us that these medical abortions are no different than the thousands of ordinary mis carriages that happen naturally every day. They suggest that it’s all just as simple as a woman popping a pill and then going to the toilet. Pass. Flush. All clean and clinical and the problem is just flushed away.

We then ask if that means they are opposed to abortions after the first trimester. We explain in some detail the technique of abortion–the insertion of sharp instruments into the woman’s body, the dismemberment of the unborn child, the crushing of the skull, the suction of the remains. We ask whether this is something they actually support and we are met with silence. In fact, the ‘clean and clinical’ chemical abortions they favor are only possible within the first few weeks of abortion. After about nine weeks the gruesome stuff begins.

The fact of the matter is that anyone who is “pro-choice” would never suggest that legal abortion be limited to the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. None of them would suggest that the only form of abortion be an abortion pill administered within the first eight or nine weeks. It’s impossible since a huge number of women don’t even know they’re pregnant until about the sixth or seventh week or later. Therefore, despite their words that they are only in favor of the clean, clinical and neat medical abortions, they must all condone abortions after twelve weeks which is when the dismemberment and suction machines start.

Will they say that abortion after twelve weeks is horrific? Will they say that abortion at fifteen weeks is terrible? Will they say that abortion at twenty weeks is wrong? Will they say that abortion at 22 weeks (when many babies are viable) is wrong? Probably not. Because they’ve already decided that killing babies in their mothers’ wombs is okay.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized 72 Comments
About Fr. Dwight Longenecker
  • bill petro

    Cognitive Dissonance: the term used in modern psychology to describe the state of holding two or more conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously. In a state of dissonance, people may sometimes feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. The theory of cognitive dissonance in social psychology proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by 1) altering existing cognitions (killing babies is OK), 2) adding new cognitions to create a consistent belief system (abortion is a women’s health issue) or 3) by reducing the importance of any one of the dissonant elements (murdering babies is wrong but social issues are more important).

  • veritas

    We’ve been through all this before – it was called Nazism and Communism.

    Both these dreadful regimes reduced human beings to nothing but a bundle of cells, and may the strongest bundle survive.

    They started with contraception, then abortion, then euthanasia, then elimination of the retarded or deaf or crippled or … hey… anybody who argued against you or anybody you didn’t like.

    Just go back to the historical facts. Look what Hitler and Stalin did.

    Wake up world! They’re back again. This time they run the universities and newspapers and film production and schools and many of the churches. They pump their lies into children as young as they can get them. They are supported by governments and multimillionaires.

    And worst of all .. they prance around with an arrogant stuck up attitude of intellectual superiority, when at the base they are nothing more than child killers.

    • Niemand

      Actually, Hitler was profoundly anti-choice: He mandated abortions in some cases and forbid them in others, but he never allowed women to make the decision of their own will. In short, he was very much on your side.

      • Steve S

        Actually, Hitler was all about the triumph of the will, except it was his own personal will that was triumphant, truth and other people be damned. So, he was very much on your side.
        Abortion is about the triumph of the individual will above all things.

        • http://reluctantliberal.wordpress.com Reluctant Liberal

          How about we all agree that Hitler’s position doesn’t really look like either sides position?

          Ugh, Godwin’s law.

      • John

        Well, that didn’t take long.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

        • Steve S

          Yeah, well I’ll happily return a Godwin’s Law with a Godwin’s Law of my own.

          But the bottom line remains: “pro-choice” means that my individual will is paramount to any other consideration whatsoever. Abortion is the ultimate power play against the the most vulnerable. (And I do believe that the women themselves are often the vulnerable victims.)

          And I’ve never once heard a coherent answer from a pro-choice advocate to this simple question: when does human life begin?

  • ndgp82

    There hearts have been hardened to the plight of the innocent baby and the mother who feels pressured and unloved.

  • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/10/24/no-5k-for-the-biggest-killer-so-does-anyone-really-believe-its-a-killer/

    For those allergic to cutting and pasting links, the short version is that Longenecker doesn’t believe what he’s saying. If each and every zygote is a tiny little person whose death is murder, then 50-75% of babies are murdered every year by straight people having sex.

    You will not see this fact on any anti-abortion website. There are no charities, benefits or lobbying for research on how to stop this scourge plaguing the just conceived. And this is the case because self important people like Longenecker are far more interested in calling people like me “baby killers” than actually being consistent with their principles.

    • Bryan

      I’m always amused when people show they don’t understand the definition of basic words, like “murder.” But I keep forgetting: I’m a rube and I don’t understand how dumb my viewpoint about abortion really is.

      • thursday

        Actually, murder means “unlawful killing”. So saying that induced abortion is murder is a statement whose truth or falsehood depends on what country or state you’re in. So “abortion is murder” is an extremely unconvincing argument for any pro-life/anti-legal-abortion activist. I really hope you’re not making this one.

        If you mean “unlawful killing under God’s law”, well, then we have to go to the bible. Which conveniently does define murder! Although, that definition was written before there was a reliable method for inducing abortion (unless you count Sotah*), and honestly, back then the infant mortality rate was so poor that infants didn’t really count until they’d survived a few months (see also the portions of the OT describing when to count infants for census purposes). So… no dice there.

        So that leaves us with a third and final definition of murder: “a death whose cause the speaker believes is morally wrong.” And so one has to ask: why is it okay to let half of all babies die before they’re born, but wrong to kill a much smaller number of them? We do research on the causes of later miscarriages and stillbirths, we consider those tragedies and console bereaved parents who have lost a child via miscarriage, and we give medical treatment to help improve the health and survival chances of both mother and child in the case of high-risk pregnancies. So why not try to save the embryos that don’t implant? Do we only care about saving embryos if it means we get to attack pregnant women for being baby killers?

        * Basically, a trial-by-ordeal for pregnant women accused of adultery. If the woman was guilty, God would cause her to miscarry.

    • revelation315

      Nathaniel, I followed the link, I looked up research, the stat used in your link is that 50-75% of all embryos fail to implant. First, Where is this stat from. Doing some external research I can not find the scientific information. It seems like if the information is accurate that the embryo are passed with normal menstrual flow, it would be a hard statistic to even scientifically study. The complete menstrual flow of a large number of women would have to be examined to determine if there is an embryo.
      Second, what makes you think that people like Fr. Longenecker are not concerned about someting like this. Miscarriages of all types are studied and there are organization such as NaPro that work tirelessly to try to reduce the amount of miscarriages.
      Third, this is one of the reasons the Catholic Church has been so opposed to contraceptive use. Contraceptive use leads directly to an embryo not being able to implant, it also over time can make it difficult for a woman to ever have an embryo implant, thus causing misscarriage.
      Fourth, my guess would be that this statistic comes from the IVF (in Vitro Fertilization) field. In IVF it is true that multiple embryos are placed in the womb of the mother and 50-75% of those embryos do not fully implant and are passed through a menstrual like method. This again is why the Catholic Church has so opposed IVF.
      If you are able to show the scientific (or even non scientific study) that shows where these statistics come from I would be more then happy to look at them. I will even start a 5k for research to end this.

      • 2-D Man

        Bill Petro said:
        Cognitive Dissonance: the term used in modern psychology to describe the state of holding two or more conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously. In a state of dissonance, people may sometimes feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. The theory of cognitive dissonance in social psychology proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by
        1) altering existing cognitions

        Second, what makes you think that people like Fr. Longenecker are not concerned about someting like this. Miscarriages of all types are studied and there are organization such as NaPro that work tirelessly to try to reduce the amount of miscarriages.

        2) adding new cognitions to create a consistent belief system

        Fourth, my guess would be that this statistic comes from the IVF (in Vitro Fertilization) field. In IVF it is true that multiple embryos are placed in the womb of the mother and 50-75% of those embryos do not fully implant and are passed through a menstrual like method. This again is why the Catholic Church has so opposed IVF.

        3) by reducing the importance of any one of the dissonant elements

        Third, this is one of the reasons the Catholic Church has been so opposed to contraceptive use. Contraceptive use leads directly to an embryo not being able to implant, it also over time can make it difficult for a woman to ever have an embryo implant, thus causing misscarriage.

        Hats on the ice, everyone.

      • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

        @Bryan
        Why not? Two people have sex, the blastocyst dies for whatever reason at age 1-2 days, according to you a person has died. And it died directly as a result of two people having sex.

        @Revelation
        You’re right its hard to study. That’s why the number given has such a wide range. If you have an alternative source that provides better information, than I’d be happy to look at it.

        I think people like this blogger don’t care about it because he has never mentioned it, and in fact has declined to comment about it. Instead he has elected to continue his crusade to call people like me and Niemand horrible baby killing monsters. Such behavior suggests less concern for precious “babies” and more a concern about buffing his own self image in face of terrible people like me.

        And in terms of contraceptive use, its funny how you claim such miscarriages would be hard to study, yet turn around and instantly accuse contraceptives of causing them, despite no studies by scientific organizations being able to show such an effect. Your bias is showing.

        It does most likely come from the IVF field. Why? Because unlike anti-abortion people like the above blogger, IVF practitioners care about such losses, and are doing their best to reduce them. Given this, IVF scientists if successful will do more to address dead “babies” than the Catholic Church ever will. Start your 5k to fund them.

        Here’s a page that’s relevant to my claims. Even cites its sources at the bottom, for your checking pleasure.

        http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancycomplications/miscarriage.html

        • revelation315

          Ok so his numbers were off. 50-75% of all miscarriages are chemical pregnancies (pregnancy in which it is believed that the miscarriage happens at the time of the missed period). At least according to your source. This is much different the story you posted to that said 50-75% of all pregnancies are chemical pregnancies.
          Contraceptive companies for years have said that they work by weakening the uterine wall. thus not allowing an embryo to implant. There are studies done to show that women who use contraception regularly are at a higher risk of miscarriage. “Long-Term use of Oral Contraceptives increases the risk of miscarriage” by Alberto Garcia-Enquidanos, David Martinez et al is one such study.
          I am glad you know exactly what this blogger is thinking and what his concerns are for the baby. I can be concerned about these babies that die through chemical pregnancies and want them to stop. We can focus on ways to end it. They are still different then the willful killing of a child. There are many ways miscarriages happen, and there are groups trying to end miscarriages, but miscarriages are different from abortion. To say because the blogger or anyone else is not writing daily about the miscarriages then he does not care is to try to distract. The greater issue is that there are people willfully killing children.
          I used IVF because the statistic used by IVF doctor’s is 50 to 75% of embryos placed int he womb will not survive. There has been little work done to change these numbers. Many times more eggs then will be implanted are fertilized so if there is failure they can try again. There are often 4-6 embryos implanted in hopes 1-2 will survive. This is done over and over again. There is no concern from IVF doctors as to the well being of the embryos. The only reason the number 4-6 is used now is because octomom’s situation.
          How you claim that IVF scientists are doing more then then Catholic Church is beyond me. Not only does the Catholic Church teach the dignity of the human person from conception to death, but She does more to prtect the life of the unborn through education, legislation encouragement, prgrams for pregnant mothers, programs for those who have had abortions. The other argument people like to use is that the church and Pro-Life people don’t care about the child after it is born. Again the Church has many more social programs for the poor then any other organization.
          You may want to try to argue that this is not a child because we are not fighting and putting money into research for chemical pregnancies, but that is a non sequitur argument. It does not follow. There is money put into research for miscarriages, and since doctors at this time believe that chemical pregnancies are a result from the same reasons as other miscarriages, the better we can solve other miscarriages the more we can solve chemical pregnancies.
          I am sorry that you take offense to being a baby killer. I also understand that you are trying to prove that it is not a child before twelve weeks (since the blogger is not talking about chemical pregnancies) and since most abortions hapen before 12 weeks. That way you can wash your hands and say that you are not a baby killer. Explain to me then what is different between a 8 week, 12 week, 16 week etc. that changes the “glob of cells” into a human person. At what poit does the fertilized egg become human? That is really the question here. Then, we can continue to fight if the blogger or others are being hypocritical over defending against abortions but not spending money on research. So when does human life, begin? When is this life a human person? When is it ok to kill the human life and human person? Is there a difference between not spending money to find a cure for the death of a human life/person and the intentional taking of that life/person?

        • Kristen inDallas

          Y’all are too funny. Everyone that dies, dies as a result of two people having sex. If two people hadn’t had sex, they’d never have been born/concieved and thus couldn’t die. However, we’re generally looking for something a little more complex than the original fact of life as the cause of death when we use words like “kill.” Nice try though. ;-)

          • JennE

            LOL you said it! The blastocele lived for so long because of two people having sex. My dad died because two people had sex. Even more important — One male and One female had sex and something more than they ever imagined (or perhaps even would ever know) happened. It’s the way it goes. SMH
            Deliberate negation of the fact of life leads to killing. Not deliberate living the principles of nature.
            Death entered but Christ conquered – live it!

          • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

            Yes, but not everyone dies as a direct result of that sex. The 55%-81.25% of pregancies that abort do.

            Is that a defense you would use in the court? “The person was inevitably going to die of natural causes anyways, so it should be of no concern I shot him.”

    • mike cliffson

      nathaniel:
      Your red herring really is pretty bad, you know.This one came up a good twenty or thirty years ago, and has been thrashed out again all over the internet.
      Most of what you are throwing up is adequately answered by other commentators.
      But, on YOUR putative turf, if the moon were made of green cheese, even so..
      Even if SOO many babies died (SOME, by inference, undoubtedly do) in early implantation failures in the womb
      What on earth other than the cheap shock and smear effect can give you any grounds for parroting that a physical cause could be behind “murdered as a result of straight people having sex?”
      One might immediately imagine general movement and upset, which in fact would require a degree of physical activity worthy of sadistic fantasies capable of leaving a normal healthy woman in hospital anyway, unknowingly early pregnant or not.Well, some women are that fragile, most aren’t, or we’d have died out around Cain and Abel’s time.
      Or perhaps the first people to assert this hoped their hearers would visualize what…. well, put fairly crudely, but frankly, speak for yourself, most men simply aren’t that well endowed.

      What however, is deliberate, and hence murder, is that that , the womb,is precisely where loops and coils are put, and are there 24/7, and why they work.Murderously.
      In the womb.
      And also how, and where, the womb, read the small print on pill prospectouses, most COMMON and Acccepted contraceptive pills include as well as anovulatory effects (no fertilizable egg) ALSO “work”.
      And where morning-after abortificient pills can only work, by definition.
      Chemical warfare on very young humans.
      In the womb
      Now, THAT isn’t putative .
      It’s what the manufactures claim should happen, and few women on the pill do have babies, and it aint done by waving magic wands exactly.
      Lotser people make lotser cash this way, aint that nice, just like the gold bars melted down from false teeth in Belsen.

      The tiniest shred of truth to puff up your asseveration is an argument to the general from special cases that some women – with existing out-of-the-ordinary-problems, (the Brit cases I know of have intheir history surving being blown up by WWII bombings with badly healed internal injuries, and or WWII brit malnutrition) – is not only , or even mostly, very early pregnancy , SOME FEW women, as said can only carry a pregnancy to natural, or early ceasarian with treatment to a ccelerate lung development, term, by being treated with kid gloves on cottton wool, more or less strapped to a bed, and not even getting up to urinate or defecate.
      Naturally, this kid gloves treatment included no marital relations.
      But, in such cases, marital relations, coitus, having straight sex you put it, is an aggravation ,very very far from the only possible one or the only one, for an existing problem.You are smearing naturality and natural law inthe same way you would if you counted the damage to a woman from normal, natural , married relations after being runover by a bicyle “She’s been hurt by straight sex” implication, unnatural relations avoid danger – Rubbish! She was already hurt by bycycle wheels! (This is not putative – IT HAS happened – in WWII,UK ,again, a lot of people WERE run over in the blackout , tens of thousands by bicycles, many of whom were women, many of whom got it between the legs. In autopsy ,very nearly indistinguishable from the most violent sadistic rapes.)
      Revelation answers your basic scientific assertion well, there is masses more on internet, but a final point:
      Prolife, a majority catholic ,fertility clinics , on a shoestring, without your or my tax or healthinsurance money, have achieved staistically as good or better results than muderous IVF in the form of healthy live babies, concentrating in most cases on identifying womb-lining problems and alleviating them.
      By inference, those women who were not having babies WERE losing them because of the womb lining not being as healthy AS IT IS IN MOST WOMEN.
      By inference, again, this problem is growing.
      Which is another long matter.
      God bless, and may you blessed with a numerous progeny

  • Jeff

    Isn’t that a silly argument, Nathaniel?

    Early spontaneous abortions are unknown and unfelt and the woman involved doesn’t usually know that there is a child within her. That’s hardly the same as a deliberate attempt to rid yourself of a child you know is within you.

    But prolifers certainly passionately oppose things like RU 486 and even the famous Pill because of their abortifacient effects.

    Even Christopher Hitchens, the passionate atheist, said that late term abortions were obviously the killing of children. What do you think? You don’t seem to respond to any of the substance of this post.

    • http://otritt.wordpress.com/ The Egyptian

      You don’t seem to respond to any of the substance of this post.

      Because he can not.

    • Niemand

      Early spontaneous abortions are unknown and unfelt and the woman involved doesn’t usually know that there is a child within her.

      So what? Isn’t that like arguing that it’s ok to run over a child as long as you do it in an SUV and therefore don’t feel the bump? Your sudden shift to unconcern about the “child” is astonishing and telling: It’s ok for a conceptus to die-as long as it’s not by the pregnant woman’s will. Why might that be?

      If the fertilized egg is a child then shouldn’t we be interested in saving it from a pandemic that will most likely kill it before it is 2 weeks old? When we see a child with leukemia or with a congenital heart anomaly or at risk for SIDS, we don’t shrug and say, “Oh, well, no need to worry about its death as long as it’s not infanticide.” Allowing babies to die “naturally” when we could save them is wrong. We spend a lot of money and effort to avoid the “natural” death of babies. If you really believed that fertilized eggs were babies, you’d be interested in saving them from “natural” death.

      • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

        You still haven’t said that you are opposed to abortion after twelve weeks. If you allow abortion after twelve weeks, then you are in favor of inserting sharp tools and suction hoses into a woman’s body in order to tear the arms and legs off the child, cut up his torso, crush his skull and suck out the remains. So you’re happy to look in the mirror and accept that you’re that kind of person?

        • Niemand

          I don’t blame you for not responding to the comment. It’s a difficult one since the original commenter overtly stated that he or she does not care about the death of a “baby” as long as the will of the pregnant woman can be thwarted. The conceptus itself, apparently, is trash unless the pregnant woman knows about it and does not want it. Do you oppose universal health care? What about SCHIP? Both save the lives of children and adults-and are opposed by many “pro-life” politicians. Do you side with the politician what’s-his-name who said that rape is part of “God’s plan”? These are your allies.

          As to abortion methods, D and C or intact evacuation is used up to 16 weeks into the pregnancy, so no “ripping of limbs, etc” is involved. The vast majority of abortions and almost all elective abortions occur before 16 weeks. Even fewer elective abortions would occur during the second trimester if there weren’t arbitrary restrictions on abortion that make it difficult for women to get abortions earlier. So your tender concern for the embryo is making it more likely that they’ll experience a later abortion.

          The majority of abortions that occur late enough to require a D and E or D and X, the procedures you’re fixated on, are performed for fetal anomalies incompatible with life. Death before pain fibers are myelinated seems to me a better end than the constant pain of Tay-Sachs or smothering from situs invertus or even slowly smothering as the mother dies from pre-eclampsia and oxygenation to the placenta fails, which was the fate the bishop wished for in the famous case in Arizona.

          How do you feel about advocating a slow and tortuous death for women and their fetuses just to avoid a procedure you find distasteful? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to-you owe me nothing and have been more patient and open to debate than many people, but at least ask yourself that question and answer it honestly.

          • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

            So you are in favor of the dismemberment, cutting up of torsos, crunching skulls and sucking out the remains of babies from their mother’s womb. At least we’re clear on that now.

          • Jan

            Wow Niemand – you are really deluded about the reasons for partial birth abortion. There are plenty of stories from women who regret having it done to their perfect babies, not to mention from nurses who will tell you that the biggest threat was to the woman’s “mental health.” What a joke. In addition, D&C’s DO tear a baby apart a lot of the time. Ask a mom whose had one for a miscarriage that didn’t expel. Nothing like seeing a dead baby you desperately wanted missing an arm or leg.

          • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

            @Jan

            Well then, it should be really easy to find stories about women who had their abortions done in the 2nd trimester and cite them.

            BTW, if you want statistics rather than stories, only 1% of women have abortions after the 20th week. A rather odd number to be described by the word “plenty.”

            http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html

          • John

            You are still killing a living human being. Thou shalt not kill.

      • flyingvic

        Am I missing something here? If I understand the matter correctly, those who oppose abortion do so because they believe it is intrinsically wrong deliberately to terminate a pregnancy simply because the woman who is pregnant does not wish, for whatever reason, to give birth. That being the case, what is the relevance of natural miscarriages or hit-and-run drivers to this discussion?

        • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

          Because the reasons they give are utterly inconsistent with their total lack of concern for blastocysts and fetus’s dying because of people having sex. If they have equal value to infants, would you consider someone who didn’t care if an infant died from negligence rather than deliberate killing “pro-child?”

    • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

      @Jeff
      “Early spontaneous abortions are unknown and unfelt and the woman involved doesn’t usually know that there is a child within her. That’s hardly the same as a deliberate attempt to rid yourself of a child you know is within you.”

      So? I thought with people like you “a person is a person, no matter how small.” Now its, “a person is a person, unless it died with no one knowing about it, so who cares?”

      And of course you repeat the lie about contraception. No scientific organization or reputable study has shown such effects, and the fact that the Catholic church repeats such lies shows just how much they value truth.

      And there is no substance to the above post. Its one long argument by ad hominen that self righteously declares the poster’s superiority over people like me.

  • David N

    Ah, Nathaniel :-) “Babies die naturally so therefore we can kill babies”. I think a philosophy and logic class is in order.

    • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

      More like, “If blastocysts have equal value as born babies, then why the lack of concern over their rampant deaths?” Cancer is perfectly natural, yet we spend billions of dollars every year combating it.

      • JennE

        As a mom who has had half of my pregnancies miscarry, HERE, HERE!! Why indeed do docs not give a damn when I am pregnant to care and help my pregnancy carry to term! I had one doc that cared enough about MY CHOICE as woman/mother to want to be as healthy as possible to try anything within reason and I did keep that threatened child. It’s a bogus argument you are giving me. That women have a choice. WE DO NOT have fair access. THERE is NO MONEY to be made in helping women keep their child. Sure there are test, genetics, etc. but when there are no answers, there are no answers. But I do live with one present answer and your positional outlook won’t ever help you have what I have and I pity that in this whole mess you have caused for yourself.
        (For others, I couldn’t keep up with a NaPro doc for all the moves we have in our state of life – and I praise GOD for each blessing – I still got to keep the graces that came with each child and this is something science can’t ever comprehend)

    • mike cliffson

      good on yer, dave!

  • Liz

    Hey, Nathaniel, the NAPRO people who are helping women with repeated miscarriages are in effect doing just that kind of research. Now clearly there will always be some babies with genetic defects that simply aren’t able to live past the very earliest days or weeks past conception, but hormonal difficulties, etc. that result in premature births (even as premature as days or weeks) are something that we may be able to solve eventually. However, the big money (government and charitable) doesn’t go for that, it goes for things like Planned Parenthood, and IVF, etc. that simply result in more innocent lives being lost.

    • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

      Such conspiracy theorizing is tiresome. Such “big money” organizations you listed have no reason to oppose such research, and it wouldn’t shock me if there have been government grants on this issue.

      At the very least, back up your claims.

      • mike cliffson

        Nathaniel
        Purlease!
        Quote”Such conspiracy theorizing is tiresome. Such “big money” organizations you listed have no reason to oppose such research, and it wouldn’t shock me if there have been government grants on this issue.

        At the very least, back up your claims.”
        Unquote
        You are sticking to a well flogged horse, but in this internet age to say that it is conspiracy to say where public money does and does not go is a “claim” is pushing your luck.
        Few things interest people more than money, few things are as all over as what happens to our taxes.
        Big private money is hardly less followed, if often more difficult: Soros, say, funds the x foundation, who then fund Y.
        Public money has gone , been screamed , been fought over for embyonic stem cell research, for example, in detrement of adult stem cell reseach- this is a fact, not a claim.
        You can check it out yourself if you realy truly didn’t know.Oh by the way, I’m claiming that the USA and the uk are fighting in Irak and Afghanistan.
        Sorry, no sources to back up the claim.Ask the next bodybag to arrive at a miltary airbase near you.
        The REASONS why public money hasn’t gone into much other than IVF might be debatable, your assertion that they have no reason NOT to fund it , if correct, still wouldn’t prove they have when they havent.
        It is hard for me not to imagine that you have some reason to distract attention from the point of this post, that deliberate killing of so much as seconds old human being is as much murder as of a centuury and a bit old humanbeing, die tho we all do sooner or later from causes that may be scandalously neglected or which we are funding research into.

        This post was titled babykilling.
        Do you , personally, he who comments as Nathaniel, agree to deliberate abortion from second number one, or not? If you do , do you want to object to baby or to killing?

  • http://industrialblog.powerblogs.com IB Bill

    I find it painful to argue with such people, Father. I posted a couple of times on another Patheos blog on this issue. No matter how compelling an argument one puts forth, someone will respond in a hard-hearted way. It is discouraging.

  • Chris Algoo

    It turns out that the vast majority of abortions happen in the first 12 weeks, so I guess you have nothing to worry about?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_termination_of_pregnancy

    As an aside, I support a woman’s right to choose past 12 weeks, because I don’t believe in forcing women to give birth against their will. So I guess this article’s spot on, in a way.

    • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

      I don’t believe in forcing a woman to give birth against their will either. That’s why I encourage them not to have sex unless they want a baby.

      • Chris Algoo

        Fantastic! If a woman would be killed by giving birth, or is currently incapable of supporting a child for a number of reasons, or simply isn’t ready to be a mother, does that mean you support abortion in those cases? Foster care/adoption often not being great choices for a child, and all.

        • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

          Catholics allow for medical procedures during pregnancy in order to save the mothers’ life. That procedure may not have the intent of killing the unborn child, but if the child’s death is a possible consequence the medical procedure to save the mother’s life is permitted. If a woman is in a crisis pregnancy adoption is the life giving option. You say ‘foster care/adoption is not a great choice for the child. So you’d kill the child instead. And that’s a great choice for the child? What evidence do you have that adoption or foster care is a bad choice for the child?

          • Vision_From_Afar

            Catholics allow for sophistic delineation to save the mother’s life, in order to maintain the hard line about any non-externally-induced terminations.

          • Fr. Dwight Longenecker
              It’s called being precise. It’s what moral theologians do.
          • Chris Algoo

            Abuse, for one thing. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/16/nyregion/trenton-finds-abuse-high-in-foster-care.html

            We disagree on whether a fetus in a belly is a child or not. Regardless, I’m glad that you value the life of the mother over the life of the fetus, when the two come into conflict.

          • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

            Big red herring. So there’s abuse in a foster home? There’s abuse in every sort of home. There are also many loving, kind and excellent foster homes and adoptive families.

        • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

          You say tomato, I say tomato. You say precise, I say hair splitting all the way down.

        • Ted Seeber

          Only an atheist could respond this way, completely discounting God’s role in the conception.

          • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

            If God has a role in conception, than how can you say God doesn’t have a role in abortion, given the 55%-81.25% of pregnancies spontaneously abort?

          • Chris Algoo

            Some would say that not believing in the existence of a God is a rather important part of what it means to be an atheist. The other important part is a great love for ravioli.

          • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

            I agree, but a love for ravioli is also a requirement to be a good Catholic…

      • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

        @Longenecker
        “I don’t support forcing a woman to give birth against her will. I just support it after an arbitrary dividing line. That doesn’t count because I chose to define force in my own personal way.

        You aren’t the boss of me dictionary!”

  • Julie C.

    I agree with IB Bill. I refrained from reading any of the abortion comments yesterday just because the pro-choice arguments are so disheartening. Hard to realize how some people can believe their wants come before another human’s right to life!

  • Sus

    I think all this talk is useless. In my past, I did believe a baby started as a blob of cells. I’ve changed my view because of what science has taught me. I really believe that if the science were available when Roe v Wade was decided, it never would have been passed. I think you can even argue that the egg and the sperm are alive without each other.

    Discussing whether or not abortion is right or wrong isn’t getting us anywhere. Why isn’t the discussion on what we can do as a society to prevent abortions? If we could help every single person that has an unwanted pregnancy (no matter what the reason is for it being unwanted), abortion wouldn’t be part of the equation. The clinics would close due to lack to of business if they didn’t have the customers.

    I watch these discussions and get so confused. I don’t understand why no one is discussing what to do about the unwanted pregnancies. It’s like once the baby is saved in the womb, we are all set. That is not true!

    • mike cliffson

      Sus

      “What we can do as a society to prevent abortions? If we could help every single person that has an unwanted pregnancy ”
      A lot of us 40 odd years ago (UK abortion bill) and afterwards thought along your lines. But I can tell you that EVERYONE who can be reached or gets in touch ( and OMG, don’t they jst pull all the stops to avoid this happening!) IS helped, me I ve done little, but Ive been in on it. Stateside too I think- many people, not only my parents, have burnt their health up volunteering for this, with their own roof leaking and their windows unrepaired, Uk winters aren’t Alaska but even so, seeing to it that the local “life “hostal was dry windproof, and heated, manning telefone lines 24/7, counseling on the sidewalk or an office, finding jobs, education, babysiters, babyclothes, cribs, money, flats,…….. ….. it’s still part of the job, please ,please, more volunnteers are always welcome and needed, there’ll be one near you unless you live in Puget sound or something………. I know people on comboxes who smugly write”the answer’s here! ” and give link drive one nuts, but the fact is things like “incrementalism” have been tried, and found wanting.
      Try life site, lifesite news, john smeaton’s SPUK, a whole raft of the catholic blogoshpere…..
      Roe/wade wasn’t yesterday. We havent done or prayed enough. But Some have died young and poor to do it, and there are their spiritual children walking the streets in droves whose mums, to not abort, needed anything from just a word to years of tlc, cash, and lawyers even.
      Had you not heard?

  • http://garden-of-ominous-delight.blogspot.com/ Hieronymus Monk

    Nobody ever said it better:
    “A woman who deliberately destroys a fetus is answerable for murder. And any fine distinction between its being completely formed or unformed is not admissible among us.” – -Saint Basil the Great (A.D. 329-379)

    • Consumer Unit 5012

      So, what punishment do you think the evil baby-murdering woman should face?

      • Paul H

        Most pro-lifers I have talked to would say that doctors (or nurses or whoever) who perform abortions should be punished, but that women who procure abortions should not themselves be punished. That is my view.

        • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

          Why not?

          • Paul H

            For one thing, the woman has already been hurt enough, even if she doesn’t yet realize it. She has had her baby ripped from her womb! Putting her in jail seems cruel and excessive to me.

            It seems clear to me that the doctor who performed the abortion is much more culpable. And if abortion were illegal, I think that abortions could be stopped much more effectively by prosecuting doctors who perform abortions than by prosecuting women who obtain abortions.

          • Lee

            Nathaniel – when I was seventeen, I “suffered” a miscarriage. Those who were on the hospital staff told me they were sorry I “lost a baby” (note, not a clump of cells, although by my estimation, the baby was probably between 8 and 10 weeks old).

            Several months later, I was pregnant again – four to be exact.

            When my parents, on whom I was financially and emotionally dependent (don’t judge) declared that this pregnancy would not continue, I went along with their program.

            When the abortion was over … and it was a full day of labor, nausea, vomiting, loose stools, cramping, PAIN, a lot of pain, and finally being knocked out and having my child removed from me…no one, not one person mentioned a baby … that they were sorry l lost a baby. What a contrast to several months prior –

            Now – I did not know, honestly did not recognize, comprehend that the abortion had killed a child. Why? Because I was told, it was not a child – it was a problem that needed to be solved. It was something that could be dispensed of. It was not a big deal.

            I am now 60 years old – I never conceived after my abortion. I recognized about seventeen years ago that it was a child that was killed … after all – how could it be a baby when I miscarried and not a baby when it was aborted? Either one statement was truth and the other was not.

            So – WHY shouldn’t a woman be charged with murder if she has had an abortion? Because she puts her feelings on hold – she does what others tell her is just fine to do – she has to stop thinking – she has to have cognitive dissidence in order to take her next breath.

            There are numerous reasons why a woman succumbs to abortion – she is told she will not be able to carry the child to term, she is told it is legal, safe, she is told that her financial support will be cut off – she is told that no man will want her if she has a child – she is told that she has to finish school – she is told that her future will be over if she has the child – the father of the baby tells her she must choose – him or the baby – she is told LIES, LIES and more LIES!

            And do not forget, that she is hormonal – she is not rational during her pregnancy – she is vulnerable. Pickles and ice cream? The old joke? It’s truth – she is not responsible …

            The abortionist on the other hand, knows exactly what he/she is doing. She knows that she is going in to remove a human being from within another human being. She knows she has to count the fingers, toes, limbs…does the mother who is aborting the baby ever told exactly what will happen? No – and the biggest thing the mother is never told is how utterly painful her life will be after this “safe and legal” procedure.

            I write, not because I want to, but because I promised my son, the child I aborted 42 years ago, that I would never be silent about his death and that I would try to enlighten those who feel that others should die the same way he did. We can do better for mothers and fathers facing an unexpected pregnancy…

            God is the author of life – and in taking the life of my son by abortion, I sinned against God – and for that I have repented and confessed – and am grateful to God for his mercy.

            My son’s name is Matthew Dean – and my favorite bible verse comes from Matthew – 9:13 – ..”for I desire mercy, not sacrifice” and God has found us all worthy of His forgiveness.

            My son is more than how he died – he was wrongly executed by those who knew better. … God bless you Nathaniel and all of those who read these words.

          • Hieronymus Monk

            Penance, not punishment.

      • http://garden-of-ominous-delight.blogspot.com/ Hieronymus Monk

        The fathers said that the murderer was excommunicated. That means, no communion. They were also required to do penance for a period of time. This was usually done in public. You’ll note that penance, and not “stoning” was the so-called “punishment”.

        • Lee

          Penance has been done … but the pro-life community often times wants more blood from the post abortive woman or man. To those who call me a baby killer – their judgement will be from God, as will mine. For those who call me a murderer – their voices are murdering my soul, which is just as sinful as my action. God has forgiven me – and there is not a thing anyone can do about it. My confessor did suggest penance – definitely not public but if you think a post abortive woman/man should do public penance – I would recommend doing public penance for judging.

          • Hieronymus Monk

            It used to be that people were ashamed of their sinful behaviors. This is not the case anymore. There is no stigma for any kind of wrongdoing today. All one needs is a ‘hot shot’ lawyer to escape the consequences of one’s actions. In St. Basil’s time this was not so. The church had – and still has – the authority to “loose and bind”. This authority was used (and often abused) to restore sinners to a community. Sometimes the sinner begged at the door of the church for years before they were readmitted.

            Nathaniel (the writer above) to who I was responding wanted to know what kind of punishment we Christians had in mind for women who had gone through abortion. His mind is not developed, and he does not understand true penance. True penance begins with metanoia – a change of heart.

            I disagree that people want “more blood”. People are passionate about what they believe. Some go over the top and must be called back. They are not the majority.

            But the church must do its work in healing. And healing includes penance.

            Sticking with St. Basil, he also wrote, “A woman who has deliberately destroyed a fetus must pay the penalty for murder.” But payment for murder is not more murder, and never was. Penance is fasting, abstaining, repentance and works of charity. It always involves a change of heart so that the sinner may be restored to communion in the church.

            We don’t “punish” anyone. Especially now.

  • FW Ken

    No one said that rape its part of God’s plan. I suspect Niemand knows that, but slander is always a nice filler when you don’t have a reasoned response.

    • Consumer Unit 5012

      “I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God. And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” – Richard Mourdock, Person Who Will Never Be Pregnant His Own Self.

      If preganacy via rape can be ‘something that God intended to happen’, and miscarriages can be ‘something that God intended to happen’, why can’t abortions? It’s not like God had any particular problem with committing mass-infanticide in Egypt…

      • Hieronymus Monk

        God’s intentions are never the same as human intentions.

    • http://politicsproseotherthings.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel

      It sure happens a lot for something that’s not of an all powerful being’s plan, who could stop it if they so cared to. At least according to you.

  • FW Ken

    Father,

    Not a fan of ravioli, but I have a killer carbonara recipe – does that count?

    • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

      sure! but a good cannelloni is tops in my book.