Commentary by James Shott
Many of us living today remember when pregnancy was regarded as the beginning of a new life, was usually a welcome and celebrated event, and religious people often viewed pregnancy as a gift from God. There were baby showers where the mother was treated to gifts for use after the birth of her child, and a positive air about the “blessed event.”
Abortion was considered taboo by society and was illegal, and because of the social and legal strictures, it was rare. As a result, abortions were usually performed in secret by the woman or by some shady character. It was dangerous to the mother because of the unsanitary “back alley” conditions of the procedure. A physician rarely performed an abortion, unless the life of the mother was at stake, or some other unusual situation required it.
Back then, people accepted responsibility for their behavior and took great care to prevent pregnancy until they were ready for parenthood. In those comparatively rare times when an unwanted pregnancy occurred, the man and the woman most often became parents, or perhaps the mother gave the baby up for adoption. Unwed mothers were a rarity.
Through the decades unintended and unwanted pregnancies have increased from rare episodes of bad luck and careless behavior to epidemic proportions, and instead of being seen as a reason to make changes to accommodate the new life that had been created, unwanted pregnancy is viewed today as an intrusion on the woman’s freedom, an inconvenience that demands relief, not so different from a headache or a cold. And to accommodate many women’s preference not to have the baby they have created, abortion has evolved from a rare thing to a routine procedure performed thousands of times each year. Now, many view a woman deciding to end the life of the child developing inside her as a right she may exercise as freely as the right to speak her mind.
Today, half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and about 40 percent are terminated by abortion. Twenty-one percent of all pregnancies, excluding miscarriages, end in abortion.
In 1981, world-renowned scientists and physicians testified before a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee that life begins at conception, which was the traditional view through the centuries. However, the question of when life begins is now being questioned by abortion advocates, and knowing the exact instant that life begins after conception and before the birth of a child is an important, if difficult to identify, piece of data to determine the point after which abortion becomes murder.
However, Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards thinks when life begins is not important.
Appearing on Fusion TV's America with Jorge Ramos, she was asked, “For you, when does life start? When does a human being become a human being?”
“This is a question that I think will be debated through the centuries,” she said.
“But for you, what's that point?” Ramos asked.
"It is not something that I feel like is really part of this conversation,” she said. “I think every woman needs to make her own decision,” she finally said.
"But why would it be so controversial for you to say when do you think life starts?" Ramos pressed.
"I don't know that it's controversial. I don't know that it's really relevant to the conversation," she replied.
“I'm the mother of three children,” she finally said. “For me, life began when I delivered them,” adding that her children have “probably” been the most important thing in her life since their birth.
“But that was my own personal, that's my own personal decision,” she said.
The abortion industry certainly does not want to know the absolute point at which life begins, because then it would be clear that aborting a fetus is at some point killing a child. That would not be a good thing for those who perform abortions for money, for organizations like Planned Parenthood that get federal money for advising women on unwanted pregnancies, or for those who think women should have a right to end an inconvenient pregnancy at anytime.
From this less strict attitude about when life begins all sorts of horrors might evolve. And they have.
For example, some Planned Parenthood officials have gone so far as to advocate infanticide, giving women the right to end their child’s life after it has been born.
And only a little further down that slippery slope are the preposterous acts of Kermit Gosnell, the disgraced and imprisoned former physician who was in the habit of ending the lives of babies who were inconsiderate enough to survive his efforts to abort them by clipping their spinal cords after they were born alive. He is in prison for life after being convicted of murdering three babies.
An interesting sidebar to this story is that the baby-killer managed to spare himself a death sentence when he waived his right to appeal in return for a life sentence, an option millions of aborted babies never had.
It must be pointed out that all of those who support the unfettered right for women to abort their babies have already been born.
Cross-posted from Observations
Showing posts with label Planned Parenthood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Planned Parenthood. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 01, 2014
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Forty years after Roe v. Wade, abortion is still a national disgrace
Commentary by James Shott
An abortion-related event occurred last week, and if you were paying close attention to the news, you might have been aware of that. Hundreds of thousands of abortion opponents gathered in Washington, DC for the “March for Life,” protesting the grisly process that has terminated about 55 million future Americans in the womb since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.
It wasn’t easy to find news accounts of this event. The Media Research Center reports, “the broadcast networks combined devoted a total of just 46 seconds to the March. ABC offered 24 seconds and NBC gave it 22 seconds, correctly noting the ‘huge turnout’ despite brutal weather conditions. CBS didn’t bother to cover it at all.”
This coverage totaled about 18 percent of the coverage the birth of a panda cub at National Zoo received a few days earlier. In the eyes of our dedicated network news people, one new panda is six times more important than 55 million aborted potential children, and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who braved the cold to make their position known.
This helps confirm the long-held idea that we do not have a news media that furnishes the public with what it needs, but instead provides what it wants the public to know.
A fact sheet published by the Guttmacher Institute tells us that at least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45. Given that the cause of pregnancy is not a medical mystery, that is a shocking statistic.
Web4Health explains that sex without contraceptives carries an 85 percent likelihood of pregnancy, and if the most effective contraceptive methods are used properly, the chance of pregnancy drops to eight percent or less, but abstaining from sexual intercourse has a zero percent pregnancy rate, except for in vitro fertilization.
According to Guttmacher, fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant. Among those women, 76 percent of pill users and 49 percent of condom users report having used their method inconsistently. Forty-six percent of women who had abortions used no contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant.
Other factors contribute to unwanted pregnancy. Some men and women are uneducated about how to have responsible sex, and contraceptives can be expensive for some.
Abortion was, in fact, the solution for more than a million women who got pregnant unintentionally last year. But as long as abortions are an easy corrective for bad luck, carelessness or bad judgment, it seems unlikely that more responsible use of contraceptives will occur.
The problem with abortion is that at some point in the pregnancy the fetus will have developed enough to be justifiably considered a human being. That point may or may not be the same point as when the fetus can survive outside the womb, but whenever that point occurs and afterward, abortion is murder. The debate goes on over just when the fetus reaches that point.
It is commonly accepted that at 20 weeks the fetus can feel pain during an abortion, and at least one researcher believes that as early as eight weeks after conception the neural structures needed to detect certain stimuli are in place. As science progresses more and more becomes known about fetal development, pushing backward toward conception the point at which the fetus is a person.
Be that as it may, it is absolutely scandalous that in America in the 21st century so many women get pregnant who don’t want to, and that so many of them choose to abort the developing life inside them.
It ought to be a point of humiliation that the great majority of unwanted pregnancies result from carelessness or negligence in the use of contraceptives, or not using contraceptives at all.
A major provider of abortions is Planned Parenthood for America, and it receives more than $500 million each year in taxpayer funds to deliver “vital reproductive health care, sex education, and information to millions of women, men, and young people worldwide,” according to its Website, “the key program [of which] provides essential health care to women, the Title X Family Planning Program.”
Planned Parenthood provided 360,000 abortions in 2013. Providing abortions to women who are pregnant and don’t want to be is not planning for parenthood.
There are couples all across this nation who cannot conceive a child and would gladly adopt an unwanted child given up for adoption. Perhaps Planned Parenthood could shift its focus from abortion to adoption, and nurture women through their unwanted pregnancy to an end that both honors life and helps those who want children, but can’t have their own.
How many great writers, scientists, artists, inventers, athletes, etc., have been summarily snuffed out before they got started?
A young pregnant wife was hospitalized for a simple attack of appendicitis and had ice applied tfso her stomach. Afterward, doctors suggested that she abort the child, because the baby would be born with disabilities. The young wife decided not to abort, and the child was born. That woman was the mother of Andrea Bocelli.
Cross-posted from Observations
An abortion-related event occurred last week, and if you were paying close attention to the news, you might have been aware of that. Hundreds of thousands of abortion opponents gathered in Washington, DC for the “March for Life,” protesting the grisly process that has terminated about 55 million future Americans in the womb since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.
It wasn’t easy to find news accounts of this event. The Media Research Center reports, “the broadcast networks combined devoted a total of just 46 seconds to the March. ABC offered 24 seconds and NBC gave it 22 seconds, correctly noting the ‘huge turnout’ despite brutal weather conditions. CBS didn’t bother to cover it at all.”
This coverage totaled about 18 percent of the coverage the birth of a panda cub at National Zoo received a few days earlier. In the eyes of our dedicated network news people, one new panda is six times more important than 55 million aborted potential children, and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who braved the cold to make their position known.
This helps confirm the long-held idea that we do not have a news media that furnishes the public with what it needs, but instead provides what it wants the public to know.
A fact sheet published by the Guttmacher Institute tells us that at least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45. Given that the cause of pregnancy is not a medical mystery, that is a shocking statistic.
Web4Health explains that sex without contraceptives carries an 85 percent likelihood of pregnancy, and if the most effective contraceptive methods are used properly, the chance of pregnancy drops to eight percent or less, but abstaining from sexual intercourse has a zero percent pregnancy rate, except for in vitro fertilization.
According to Guttmacher, fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant. Among those women, 76 percent of pill users and 49 percent of condom users report having used their method inconsistently. Forty-six percent of women who had abortions used no contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant.
Other factors contribute to unwanted pregnancy. Some men and women are uneducated about how to have responsible sex, and contraceptives can be expensive for some.
Abortion was, in fact, the solution for more than a million women who got pregnant unintentionally last year. But as long as abortions are an easy corrective for bad luck, carelessness or bad judgment, it seems unlikely that more responsible use of contraceptives will occur.
The problem with abortion is that at some point in the pregnancy the fetus will have developed enough to be justifiably considered a human being. That point may or may not be the same point as when the fetus can survive outside the womb, but whenever that point occurs and afterward, abortion is murder. The debate goes on over just when the fetus reaches that point.
It is commonly accepted that at 20 weeks the fetus can feel pain during an abortion, and at least one researcher believes that as early as eight weeks after conception the neural structures needed to detect certain stimuli are in place. As science progresses more and more becomes known about fetal development, pushing backward toward conception the point at which the fetus is a person.
Be that as it may, it is absolutely scandalous that in America in the 21st century so many women get pregnant who don’t want to, and that so many of them choose to abort the developing life inside them.
It ought to be a point of humiliation that the great majority of unwanted pregnancies result from carelessness or negligence in the use of contraceptives, or not using contraceptives at all.
A major provider of abortions is Planned Parenthood for America, and it receives more than $500 million each year in taxpayer funds to deliver “vital reproductive health care, sex education, and information to millions of women, men, and young people worldwide,” according to its Website, “the key program [of which] provides essential health care to women, the Title X Family Planning Program.”
Planned Parenthood provided 360,000 abortions in 2013. Providing abortions to women who are pregnant and don’t want to be is not planning for parenthood.
There are couples all across this nation who cannot conceive a child and would gladly adopt an unwanted child given up for adoption. Perhaps Planned Parenthood could shift its focus from abortion to adoption, and nurture women through their unwanted pregnancy to an end that both honors life and helps those who want children, but can’t have their own.
How many great writers, scientists, artists, inventers, athletes, etc., have been summarily snuffed out before they got started?
A young pregnant wife was hospitalized for a simple attack of appendicitis and had ice applied tfso her stomach. Afterward, doctors suggested that she abort the child, because the baby would be born with disabilities. The young wife decided not to abort, and the child was born. That woman was the mother of Andrea Bocelli.
Cross-posted from Observations
Saturday, March 30, 2013
We Believe It Is Okay To Murder The Child If The Parent Doesn't Want It!
By Findalis
Monkey in the Middle
Is basically the statement given by Planned Parenthood's lobbyist Alisa LaPolt Snow when asked if a child is born alive during a botched abortion what should be done with it. This goes along with the teachings of Planned Parenthood and the writings of Alberto Giubilini of Monash University in Melbourne and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourn. Professors (and I use the word loosely) Giubilni and Minerva believe that a parent has the right to murder her child until the child reaches the age of 2. They claim the child is NOT a human and there is no soul. Now it seems that Planned Parenthood is spouting this idea.
I fear this is the next "right" that the Sandra Flukes and Planned Parenthood cronies will impose upon us. And I can just hear Satan laughing his head off.
Monkey in the Middle
Is basically the statement given by Planned Parenthood's lobbyist Alisa LaPolt Snow when asked if a child is born alive during a botched abortion what should be done with it. This goes along with the teachings of Planned Parenthood and the writings of Alberto Giubilini of Monash University in Melbourne and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourn. Professors (and I use the word loosely) Giubilni and Minerva believe that a parent has the right to murder her child until the child reaches the age of 2. They claim the child is NOT a human and there is no soul. Now it seems that Planned Parenthood is spouting this idea.
A representative from Planned Parenthood is raising some eyebrows for her response to questioning on Florida legislation that would require baby's born alive during a botched abortion to receive medical care.Has anyone else noticed that this debate is going from aborting children before birth to now murdering children after they are born? And at what age do we consider the child "Human"?At what age does their murder become a crime? 2? 12? 21? 50? A week ago a pair of teens shot a 13 month old little boy in the head, killing him. Today they are charged with murder. If Alisa LaPolt Snow and Planned Parenthood have their way, they would be given medals and a monetary reward.
Alisa LaPolt Snow, a lobbyist with the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified this week at a committee hearing on the bill, sparking expressions of disbelief when she underscored that such matters be left to the woman, her family and her physician.
"Planned Parenthood condemns any physician who does not follow the law or endangers a woman's or a child's health, but we don't believe that politicians should be the ones who decide what constitutes the best, medically appropriate treatment in any given situation," she said in a prepared statement.
One of the lawmakers asked her what Planned Parenthood's position would be if a baby is born as a result of a botched abortion.
"We believe that any decision that's made should be left up to the woman, her family and the physician," she said.
When another lawmaker asks her specifically what Planned Parenthood does when such a scenario happens at its clinics, she said simply, "I do not have that information."
Another lawmaker made the point that the baby born alive would become a patient as well, not just the mother.
"That's a very good question," Snow said. "I really don't know how to answer that."
She had said earlier that Planned Parenthood's primary objection to the legislation is that it doesn't include a "neutrality clause" that would make clear it does not change the legal status of a baby before being born alive.
Source
I fear this is the next "right" that the Sandra Flukes and Planned Parenthood cronies will impose upon us. And I can just hear Satan laughing his head off.
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