What Do They Mean When They Say "Choice"?

#prochoice @NARAL #BlogforChoiceDay #prolife
Tell someone who identifies as "pro-choice" that they are "pro-abortion. Try it. If you ever have, you know that, without exception, they take great offense.

This is not a new phenomenon. During the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Abraham Lincoln referred to Stephen A. Douglas as being pro-slavery. Douglas, who actually owned slaves indirectly through his wife, took great umbrage at the label. Douglas' stated position was that he was not pro-slavery, but rather that he was in favor of allowing each state to decide its own policies regarding slavery. In the parlance of today, Douglas was "pro-choice" on slavery. Of course, he never inquired as to what "choice" the slaves themselves might prefer.

Does anyone remember anything Stephen A. Douglas ever did or said on any other topic? Defending slavery was hardly his life's work. As a three-term U.S. Senator, Douglas devoted himself to streamlining the process of bringing new western states into the Union. Douglas' driving passion was the expansion of the United States. But what he is remembered for is having been wrong on slavery.

On this anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, politicians of today should take a lesson from Stephen Douglas. Those on the wrong side of the abortion debate, who finesse their positions by claiming to be "personally opposed, but..." pro-choice civil libertarians -- especially those Democrats who want to regulate every single other aspect of our lives -- are only going to be remembered for their complicity in the murders of over 53,000,000 innocents so far, a holocaust that dwarfs the achievements of Hitler or Stalin.

What do they mean by "choice" anyway? I'll give you a hint: they're not talking about peanut butter.

"Choice" means the right of a woman to choose whether to love her baby, or kill him.

"Choice" means that you have to pay, through your federal, state, and local governments, over $300,000,000 per year to Planned Parenthood alone.

"Choice" means that a baby might be killed by having her arms, legs and head sawed off in the womb, and her trunk divided into sections.

"Choice" means that a baby might be killed by having his body bathed in acid.

"Choice" means that a baby might be killed by having her birth forced prematurely, and be left to gasp out her life in a soiled hospital linen closet, or else have her skull pierced with a pair of scissors.

"Choice' means that a baby's humanity (or lack thereof) will be judged by his health.

"Choice" means that a baby's humanity will be judged not on her health, but on her ability to survive outside the environment that's natural for her state of development.

"Choice" means that his humanity will be judged on his father's criminal conduct.

"Choice" means that a baby has no rights that a born person must respect.

"Choice" means that we have to tolerate 1.5 million abortions per year, including women getting their third and fourth abortions, including abortions as birth control, including partial birth and other late term abortions, including abortions instead of reporting child abuse, including abortions instead of reporting statutory rape, including abortions for minors without their parents' knowledge or consent and including nearly half (or more) of abortions sought because the mother was either coerced or abandoned by someone on whom she should have been able to depend.

If you're pro-choice, this is what you're OK with.

Though how you sleep at night, God only knows.




(Cross-posted from Thoughts of a Regular Guy)

What Problem Were We Trying To Solve?

Remind me again, what problem were we trying to solve when abortion was declared a "right"? Wasn't it something about women dying from illegal, "back-alley" abortions? So, what about this guy:

An abortion doctor who catered to minorities, immigrants and poor women was charged with eight counts of murder in the deaths of a patient and seven babies who were born alive and then killed with scissors, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, made millions of dollars over 30 years, performing as many illegal, late-term abortions as he could, prosecutors said. State regulators ignored complaints about him and failed to visit or inspect his clinic since 1993, but no charges were warranted against them, District Attorney Seth Williams said.

Gosnell "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord," Williams said.

Williams said patients were subjected to squalid and barbaric conditions at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society.

The woman who died was identified as 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, who died in November, 2009.

Authorities went to investigate drug-related complaints at the clinic last year and stumbled on what Williams called a "house of horrors."

"There were bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses were scattered throughout the building," Williams said. "There were jars, lining shelves, with severed feet that he kept for no medical purpose."

The clinic was shut down and Gosnell's medical license was suspended after the raid.

Here in Illinois, veterinary clinics are better regulated than abortion "clinics". How many facilities do we have like this one?

"Aborted" Baby Almost Cremated Alive!

We see it time and time again. A baby survives an abortion attempt, and then is left for dead.

As an Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama actively defended this practice.

But sometimes it gets even worse. We recently reported on a baby who survived 22 hours of such postpartum neglect, only to be found by priest who had gone to pray over the body.

Now from China, we have this story of a baby who not only survived the abortion, and the ensuing neglect, but who was disposed of as medical waste and nearly cremated alive (Hat-tip to Hawaii Right to Life):

AN aborted baby declared dead by doctors in south China's Guangdong Province cried before he was due to be cremated, but died hours later as doctors refused to treat him.

A mortuary worker at Nanhai Funeral Home in Foshan City said the baby cried and scared him as he was about to throw the coffin into a furnace, Information Times reported today.

He opened the box and found the seven-month fetus moving, but apparently choking on some cotton wool in his mouth, the report said.

After the worker cleared his mouth, the baby yawned and breathed peacefully. Workers rushed him back to Guanyao Hospital which delivered the baby as medical waste earlier that day.

But doctors left him in the lobby, and confirmed after an hour that the baby died. [Emphasis added.]

As tragic as this story is, there's a lesson to be learned here, that should be obvious to anyone who ever watched a crime drama on American television: when someone escapes alive from murderers intent on killing him, it is neither helpful nor humane to return that person to the murderers who tried to kill him in the first place.

Remember, there's nothing magic about location. The baby is here, the baby is there, the abortionist doesn't care. Once the decision is made to kill, the baby is not safe anywhere, neither in the womb, nor out of it.

(Cross-posted to Thoughts of a Regular Guy.)