uriah
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Posts: 25
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Post by uriah on May 26, 2013 12:16:35 GMT
Ignore the cynicism! This presents an opportunity. If one or two other Labour TDs (and I understand that there is another Labour TD who intends opposing this Bill) can be split away and have their voting intention made public then it increases the pressure on the FG TDs. The focus and pressure now needs to fall on Arthur Spring - he has attended pro-life breakfast meetings with Ronan Mullen in the past.
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Post by hibernicus on May 26, 2013 16:48:12 GMT
I didn't necessarily endorse the cynicism, I just wanted to note its existence. If Mr Keaveney opposes the Bill that's good, whatever his reasons, but we have to be prepared for all eventualities.
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 13, 2013 23:24:38 GMT
Rod Dreher analyses the underlying assumptions of the pro-choice position and how these explain how anyone can embrace its evident absurdity and barbarism EXTRACT ...Why do liberals believe it unjust to deny a woman abortion for any reason? Part of the answer, I believe, is that they believe the summum bonum of life is to maximize opportunities for sexual pleasure unrestricted by law, biology, or morality. Take a look at this essay on the NYT’s website by a philosophy and women’s studies professor, arguing that a man who impregnates a woman should not be required to accept fatherhood unless he wants to. Excerpt: Feminists have long held that women should not be penalized for being sexually active by taking away their options when an accidental pregnancy occurs. Do our policies now aim to punish and shame men for their sexual promiscuity? Many of my male students (in Miami where I teach), who come from low-income immigrant communities, believe that our punitive paternity policies are aimed at controlling their sexual behavior. Moreover, the asymmetrical options that men and women now have when dealing with an unplanned pregnancy set up power imbalances in their sexual relationships that my male students find hugely unfair to them. Rather than punish men (or women) for their apparent reproductive irresponsibility by coercing legal paternity (or maternity), the government has other options, such as mandatory sex education, family planning counseling, or community service. More: Policies that punish men for accidental pregnancies also punish those children who must manage a lifelong relationship with an absent but legal father. These “fathers” are not “dead-beat dads” failing to live up to responsibilities they once took on — they are men who never voluntarily took on the responsibilities of fatherhood with respect to a particular child. We need to respect men’s reproductive autonomy, as Brake suggests, by providing them more options in the case of an accidental pregnancy. Shorter New York Times philosopher: “We need to make consequence-free sex more possible.” The reader who sent me the philosophy essay writes: Some of the assumptions in this column are breathtaking: “In consenting to sex, neither a man nor a woman gives consent to become a parent, just as in consenting to any activity, one does not consent to yield to all the accidental outcomes that might flow from that activity.” Pregnancy is an “accidental outcome” of sex?!? No, conking your head against the headboard is an “accidental outcome” of sex. Pregnancy is a completely predictable and natural outcome of sex. “Many of my male students (in Miami where I teach), who come from low-income immigrant communities, believe that our punitive paternity policies are aimed at controlling their sexual behavior.” Good! I *want* laws that “aim at controlling” irresponsible behavior, sexual and otherwise! … We really do live in a degenerate age. We must have equal freedom, and we must have it now! What do I mean by “equal freedom”? The phrase is James Kalb’s, and here he explains that “equal freedom” is the goal of contemporary liberalism: By liberalism I mean the view that equal freedom is the highest political, social, and moral principle. The big goal is to be able to do and get what we want, as much and as equally as possible. That view comes from the view that transcendent standards don’t exist–or what amounts to the same thing, that they aren’t publicly knowable. That leaves desire as the standard for action, along with logic and knowledge of how to get what we want. Desires are all equally desires, so they all equally deserve satisfaction. Nothing is exempt from the system, so everything becomes a resource to be used for our purposes. The end result is an overall project of reconstructing social life to make it a rational system for maximum equal preference satisfaction. That’s what liberalism is now, and everything else has to give way to it. For example, traditional ties like family and inherited culture aren’t egalitarian or hedonistic or technologically rational. They have their own concerns. So they have to be done away with or turned into private hobbies that people can take or leave as they like. Anything else would violate freedom and equality. This is why we are to deplore any law that stands in the way of expanding sexual freedom for all, and support government programs to ameliorate the consequences. END www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/abortion-equal-freedom-children-contraception/#post-comments
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 14, 2013 8:12:03 GMT
This article discusses the possibility that the US Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which established the view that there is a constitutional right to abortion, might be struck down not on a pro-life basis but on the basis of an absolutist pro-choice view that women cannot be equal citizens unless they have access to abortion on demand. The article may discuss this in terms of the US Constitution but it is relevant to us here - because, make no mistake, this is the end-point the hard core of pro-choicers want. BTW note the point that much bioethics explicitly proclaims that life and personhood are not equivalent, which is another way of saying that life is not the highest right: EXTRACT Roe and its progeny cases, such as Planned Parenthood v. Casey, left room for pro-life advocates to deploy subversive legislative and litigation strategies that have opened significant cracks in the once unbreachable judicial wall around the abortion right. For example, court rulings have permitted the outlawing of most late-term abortions, a ban on “partial birth abortion,” mandatory waiting periods, ultrasound testing, and building code regulation of abortion facilities—all contributing to a substantial reduction in annual terminations. Almost as an aside, one of the seminar presenters noted the implacable opposition of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to this limited right to regulate status quo. Ginsburg believes adamantly that women are denied “equal citizen stature” by boundaries placed around access to abortion. Not only that, but in an angry dissent to the 2007 Supreme Court ruling upholding the federal ban on partial birth abortion, she (joined by Justice Breyer among the current justices) railed against the majority allowing “moral concerns” to “override fundamental rights.” That sounded to me as advocacy for an unfettered right to abortion at any time and for any reason. So, I asked expert anti-abortion attorney Clarke D. Forsythe—the senior counsel for Americans United for Life—whether Ginsburg’s view would abolish all abortion regulation. Yes, he told me: If the right to an abortion were based on “equal protection of the law,” as opposed to other constitutional standards, it would “permit no regulations at any time,” perhaps even, “requiring [government] abortion funding.” In other words, even though the most well-known anti-Roe efforts are aimed at overturning the case to permit greater state regulation, a significant—if quieter—counter-push seeks to (essentially) overturn Roe by making the abortion right virtually absolute. At the very least, it would repair those cracks in the protective wall. As an article in the UCLA Law Review supportive of the equal protection standard put it, “Crucially, once the Supreme Court recognizes that people have a right to [abortion] by virtue of equal citizenship,” the right would be “on a stronger legal and political footing,” making it far less susceptible to the current pro-life strategy of “chipping away.” As if that weren’t enough, I thought about how Roe had permitted some limits on abortion based on the “important and legitimate [state] interest in protecting the potentiality of human life,” an interest that the Court ruled becomes “compelling” at the point of fetal “viability.” But many powerful voices no longer consider “human life” to be a morally relevant category. For example, the mainstream bioethics movement argues that what matters morally isn’t being “human” but possessing sufficient mental capacities—such as being self-aware—to be considered a “person.” In this view, only persons have a right to life. Since a fetus does not possess personhood capacities at any time during gestation—contrary to Roe—the state has no interest in protecting fetal life even after viability. Now, add a third element to the equation: Roe was intended to settle the abortion issue once and for all. It clearly didn’t do that. Many frustrated pro-choicers still dream of obliterating all impediments to abortion on demand. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s recently announced plan to permit the termination of viable fetuses to protect the mother’s “health” illuminates the potential path ahead. Roe’s companion case, Doe v. Bolton, defined “health” broadly as including “all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well-being of the [pregnant] patient.” Replacing “health” for the current life-of-the-mother legal standard for post-viability abortion, Forsythe warns, would harness Doe’s “limitless definition,” resulting in a virtually unlimited late-term abortion license. [NOTE BTW THAT THE X CASE DECISION INVOKES HEALTH AS WELL AS LIFE, AND THAT THE DEFEATED 1992 AMENDMENT EXPLICITLY SOUGHT TO REMOVE "HEALTH" - SO THE GROUNDS FOR THIS RADICAL VIEW ARE ALREADY THERE IN LEGISLATING FOR X] Relevant to the overturning of Roe from the other direction, Forsythe says that, “As a matter of policy, Cuomo’s bill would do in New York what Ginsburg’s judicial view would impose across the nation.” Finally, assume a United States Supreme Court in which Justices Clarence Thomas and/or Antonin Scalia have been replaced by Ginsburg-thinking replacements. A new 5—4 or 6—3 majority could then exist to make equal protection the primary pillar supporting the abortion license, perhaps also installing “personhood” in place of “humanhood” as the relevant legal standard for applying a right to life. That—and not a pro-life reversal—could be the end of Roe v. Wade. END www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/06/a-pro-abortion-reversal-of-roe
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 14, 2013 10:47:35 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jun 21, 2013 20:51:32 GMT
There is an Irish Atheists and Agnostics for Life group - they have a Facebook page www.facebook.com/IrishAtheistsAndAgnosticsForLifeGood for them! "34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’"
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 4, 2013 16:51:03 GMT
Many a true word spoken in jest - here we see a clash in Texas between pro-life and pro-choice demonstrators over Democrat state senators attempts to filibuster a bill which would forbid abortions past 20 weeks and enforce hygiene regulations on abortion clinics. (As the post points out, Senator Wendy Davis, who is the most prominent face of the filibuster, is being praised by liberals - including Barack Obama, to whom so many of us Irish were recently volunteering to serve as footstools - and lionised by the liberal media, which never bothers to raise such trifling questions as whether there might be anything to be said against abortions after 20 weeks, and whether the Gosnell case highlights what happens when abortion clinics are allowed to ignore hygiene regulations routinely applied to medical facilities). The pro-choicers try to shout down the pro-lifers with chants of "Not the church, not the state, women must decide their fate" - which I can guarantee we'll be hearing from the usual hecklers at the march for Life in Dublin on Saturday, BTW. Then some of the pro-choicers start shouting "Hail Satan". Of course these lamebrains don't really believe in Satan - they just see him as a symbol of defiance of Christian morality and insistence on doing whatever they want without any restraints. As CS Lewis said, what the Devil really wants is for people to worship him without realising that is what they are doing: blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100224931/pro-abortion-activists-chant-hail-satan-at-a-texas-rally-satan-doesnt-need-this-kind-of-bad-publicity/EXTRACT Texas is undergoing a rough, ugly battle about abortion. On Tuesday, activists for and against a proposed abortion law that would prohibit the procedure past the 20th week of pregnancy gathered at the state Capital in Austin for a bizarre shout-down. The prolife side sang Amazing Grace. The pro-abortion side tried to drown them out by shouting “Hail Satan!” I’m not making this up: you can view one of the confrontations on the video above and another via this link. Quite what Satan thinks about it all, we can obviously only speculate. But I'm guessing that even the Horned One would regard association with the US abortion industry as bad PR. More on why in a moment. The mainstream media has, of course, been in the bag for the opponents of the bill. Embarrassingly so. Last month, State Senator Wendy Davis tried to block the legislation with a filibuster speech in the state house that lasted nearly 11 hours, and since then she’s been treated like a latter-day Joan of Arc by the media. Ross Douthat has transcribed some of the questions that ABC posed to Wendy and they are, to say the least, softball. For example: “Why did you decide to wear your running shoes? Let’s take a look at those … they’ve kind of been rocketing around the internet!” And does Wendy prefer kittens or puppies? There are plenty of other examples of this absurd love-in, but I’d point you to this interview with Anderson Cooper which might as well end in a high-five: “What was it like standing for that long, speaking for that long, not going to the bathroom? What is it like to filibuster for eleven hours?” How do you stay so fit, girlfriend? At no point in the interview does Anderson address the bigger questions about the morality or physical reality of abortion after 20 weeks. No, he’s far more interested in her ability to stand and talk for a very long time. The abortion bill isn’t that big a deal; it’s already on the books in 12 other states. Charles Cooke has written a brutal take down of opposition to the 20 week ban, pointing out that a baby is pretty much a baby by that point (some studies show it can recognise its mother’s voice) and that a ban is actually supported by a narrow plurality of the American people. Women back it by larger percentages than men, which shoots down Wendy’s claim to speak for her gender. What she does speak for is a profitable industry damaged by bad PR that is desperate for poster-children like Wendy Davis to improve its image after the awful Gosnell case. Remember him? The guy who butchered women and babies through late term abortions carried out in filthy conditions in a surgery that reeked of cat pee? That’s the sordid reality of “safe, legal and rare”. But back to the happy campers who yelled “Hail Satan!” at the prolife advocates who tried to sing a hymn. Of course those protestors aren’t actual Satanists, but their casual blasphemy reflects the nihilism at the heart of the pro-abortion lobby. They represent an extreme materialist philosophy that is uninterested in subtle debates about when life begins or in genuine attempts to negotiate between the needs of the infant and its vulnerable mother. No. They are only interested in total, unrestrained liberty – in the freedom to do whatever the Hell they want without any regard for ethics or the lives of others. They would do better to chant “Hail Ourselves!” – for they are a movement of the human ego at its most monstrous. END Another post on the soft-centred coverage given to the self-advertising Ms Davis. Of course, the IRISH TIMES, taking its lead from its American counterparts, has joined in the eulogies to her as a heroine facing down those mean ol' Texas prolifers, while at the same time it spatters with abuse those FG TDs brave enough to sacrifice their career prospects by standing up for the unborn. www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/wendy-davis-media-heroine/And here: twitchy.com/2013/07/02/hail-satan-abortion-supporters-troll-pro-lifers-outside-texas-capitol/
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 29, 2013 16:13:12 GMT
As readers of this board may know, I think Des Fennell has gone off-beam, but he used to be able to make sharp observations. I remember him back in the 1980s noting an incident when a women's radio programme interviewed a man who denounced natural family planning because he wanted his wife to have sex with him whenever he felt like it and had no intention of observing any form of self-restraint; and although this man was clearly a jerk the interviewers never challenged him but continually egged him on because they saw him as serving the great cause of unrestricted contraception. Recently a trendy US female comic has been calling on male pro-aborts to come forward and declare themselves "bro-choice". The respondents have included some creeps who proclaim themselves "pro-choice" because they think being in favour of abortion will help them to persuade women to have casual sex with them. The pro-aborts apparently are happy with these allies - just like the feminist broadcasters mentioned by Fennell 30 years ago were happy with the jerk. www.lifenews.com/2013/07/17/men-behaving-badly-brochoicers-want-abortions-legal-to-sexually-prey-on-women/www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2013/07/pigs-for-planned-parenthood.html
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 3, 2013 16:44:15 GMT
Rod Dreher's post below is self-explanatory. Note how in the combox some of the Moloch-worshippers explicitly cite the Savita case as showing the need for unrestrained Molochianity. Just one more reminder of how the forces of darkness worldwide intermesh with the struggle here in Ireland. www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/thank-you-lord-for-abortion/comment-page-1/#commentsEXTRACT This is the sickest thing I’ve seen in ages. It’s a five-minute prayer delivered by an Iowa progressive activist named Midge Slater, in which she thanks God for abortion, and prays for more of it — as well as for more birth control, against the effects of patriarchal religion (“We pray for women who have been made afraid of their own power by their paternalistic religion”), and for the women to celebrate their “herstories.” Behold, the Religious Left at prayer. Two Democratic candidates for Iowa governor were present at this abominable display, which took place in the Iowa State Capitol in advance of a hearing about a controversial new abortion regulation. Though I am pro-life, I can understand why people would oppose the regulation. But to thank God for the gift of abortion? It’s utterly creepy. Know what’s creepier? The head of the Episcopal Divinity School’s infamous “Abortion Is A Blessing” speech. Not a “tragic necessity,” but a “blessing.” END
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Post by chercheur on Sept 4, 2013 9:20:33 GMT
Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism is an entertaining but very eye opening read on the links between liberal politics in the U.S. of which the like of Obama and Clinton are the heirs, with the eugenicist, fascist and illiberal ( in the classic sense ) strands of European and American early 20th century thought.
What could be more corporatist and fascist in the proper sense than the New Deal?
The Left's obsession with abortion is essentially a consequence of two parallel impulses. The search for the zipless f*^k and the fascist intrusion of statist quasi morality into the sphere of morals and ethics.
On another note is there any other example in history of democratic political movements seeking to cull millions of people whose background and birth circumstances ( largely non white, illegitimate and poor ) would indicate they would be largely either apolitical or leftist in inclination? So attractive is the zipless f*^k tha tthey will cut their own noses of to spite their faces.
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 6, 2013 20:13:34 GMT
I wouldn't blame it all on the left. There is a very sinister right-wing contempt for useless eaters that lurks behind a lot of pro-abort sentiment; scratch the surface and you will find a lot of those who say they want abortion to help the poor really mean "to cull them". I remember once reading a blog by an US Catholic who once worked as a staffer for Jesse Helms (Senator for North Carolina who was pretty racist but also a staunch pro-lifer) and who said Helms' office regularly got letters from people who said they agreed with Helms on everything but abortion, because they wanted to keep down the numbers of the n****rs. The New Deal was a real ragbag depending on which of FDR's courtiers had his ear at the relevant time, and the man was a paternalist snob, but I still think there was a great deal to be said for Monsignor John A Ryan's view that the New Deal was to a considerable extent Catholic social doctrine in action. The title Liberal Fascism is really overkill because conservatives of various types were just as much inclined to favour the style of technocratic-authoritarian politics as left-liberals. Classical-liberal proponents of laissez-faire economics in the early twentieth century were often quite willing to side with fascist or authoritarian governments on the basis that the hard decisions needed to maintain a liberal-capitalist economy quite simply could not be taken in a democracy since they would be too unpopular. This argument was actually used by quite a few nineteenth-century opponents of mass enfranchisement who were classical liberals (i.e. what Goldberg calls conservatives). It was widely used, for example, by Southern Unionists and opponents of Irish land legislation in the late nineteenth century. Here is an example of this viewpoint: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_LoweEXTRACT Lowe thought any step towards democracy was bad because it engendered "a right existing in the individual as opposed to general expediency… numbers as against wealth and intellect".[6] So the bill contained "the terms of endless agitation".[7] Proponents of the Bill argued a lower property qualification would give the vote to respectable members of the working class. But Lowe thought: “ the elite of the working classes you are so fond of, are members of trades unions... founded on principles of the most grinding tyranny not so much against masters as against each other... It was only necessary that you should give them the franchise, to make those trades unions the most dangerous political agencies that could be conceived; because they were in the hands, not of individual members, but of designing men, able to launch them in solid mass against the institutions of the country.[8] ” Being a man of company law, Robert Lowe saw unions as a threat to the order, which as he drafted, allowed only for social participation through investment of capital, not investment of labour. As it was the case that participation in Parliament was also only possible through possession of property, Lowe was fearful that a change in one part of the world he understood would lead to another, ending in unforeseeable chaos. “ This principle of equality which you have taken to worship, is a very jealous power; she cannot be worshipped by halves, and like the Turk in this respect, she brooks no rival near the throne. When you get a democratic basis for your institutions, you must remember that you cannot look at that alone, but you must look at it in reference to all your other institutions. When you have once taught the people to entertain the notion of the individual rights of every citizen to share in the Government, and the doctrine of popular supremacy, you impose on yourselves the task of re-modelling the whole of your institutions, in reference to the principles that you have set up...[9] ” Lowe concluded his speech with considerable flair. “ You must take education up the very first question, and you must press it on without delay for the peace of the country. Sir, I was looking to-day at the head of the lion which was sculptured in Greece during her last agony after the battle of Chaeronea, to commemorate that event, and I admired the power and the spirit which portrayed in the face of that noble beast the rage, the disappointment, and the scorn of a perishing nation and of a down-trodden civilization, and I said to myself, "O for an orator, O for an historian, O for a poet, who would do the same thing for us!" We also have had our battle of Chaeronea; we too have had our dishonest victory. That England, that was wont to conquer other nations, has now gained a shameful victory over herself; and oh! that a man would rise in order that he might set forth in words that could not die, the shame, the rage, the scorn, the indignation, and the despair with which this measure is viewed by every cultivated Englishman who is not a slave to the trammels of party, or who is not dazzled by the glare of a temporary and ignoble success![10] END OF EXTRACT And here is a contemporary example from a right-wing science-fiction author who is pals with Newt Gingrich. I must say my blood runs cold when I see this man described on the US Catholic blogosphere from time to time as "a Christian author". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_PournelleEXTRACT In The Mercenary, later integrated into Falkenberg's Legion, the newly-independent planet Hadley is threatened with economic collapse, famine, and resulting mass death. This can only be avoided by having a large part of its city population relocated to the countryside and assigned to work in agriculture (a socialist solution which is very reminiscent of Mao's "cultural revolution"). This solution is unpopular, and the leading Freedom Party won't hear of it. The party uses bloody, violent means to force the planet's President to resign and get themselves into power. The story's protagonist, mercenary commander John Christian Falkenberg, finds what he considers a brutal but unavoidable solution: in order to force the city people to move to the countryside, the Freedom Party must be completely crushed, in however bloody a way - as the other alternative is a total economic collapse in which at least a third of the population would perish. Accordingly, he gets his soldiers into the stadium where the Freedom Party holds its rally, catching its members by complete surprise. His men break the disorganized resistance and proceed to systematically kill the armed militants and party leaders. Mission completed, Falkenberg hands over power to a well-meaning liberal who hitherto could only wring his hands in despair, and departs the planet. Falkenberg freely offers to use himself and his men as scapegoats, since "nobody is going to forget what happened today". END Substitute the suction machine as instrument of killing for the machine gun, and you are not too far removed from the justification for abortion advanced by certain US commentators.
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 9, 2013 23:06:15 GMT
Cristina Odone writes one of several TELEGRAPH pieces pointing out how bizarre is the rationale offered by the Crown Prosecution Service who have refused to prosecute doctors caught on camera offering to perform abortions where the woman specifically states that she wants an abortion because she is pregnant with a girl. She also notes something which is really alarming - some pro-abort commentators have declared that whatever the law says, absolute abortion on demand has been established as a right through common usage. This argument is not, as usual, confined to Moloch's High Priestess Ann Furedi and her attendant imps at BPAS and her own little political cult, but is being voiced by commentators in the mainstream British media. It will be noted that it is not a million miles from the scaremongering here to the effect that any restriction on abortion however slight, any protection for the baby however small, is a chill factor which causes women's deaths. blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100234994/malala-must-hear-the-sinister-voice-of-the-taliban-in-the-cps-evasion-on-gendercide/EXTRACT Malala Yousafazai is only 16 but already she has proved herself to be one of the most inspiring figures of recent years. The Pakistani schoolgirl, shot by the Taliban for her campaign to educate girls, last Friday accepted an international Children's Peace Prize. Her extraordinary courage – she had to endure a five-hour operation when she was flown to Birmingham last February – has been hailed around the world. She has been honoured with countless awards and has even addressed the UN. Here, in her adopted homeland (she and her family have settled in Birmingham) she is an icon among schoolgirls. So what must Malala make of the recent pronouncement by the Crown Prosecution Service regarding gendercide? Keir Starmer, QC, the head of the CPS, last week decided that it was "not in the public interest" to prosecute doctors who agreed to abort girl foetuses. Despite a Daily Telegraph investigation, which exposed the doctors, the CPS will not charge them. In other words, the CPS does not regard gendercide a crime worth punishing. Malala Yousafazai must hear, in this decision, the sinister sound of a Taliban directive: they don't count, they are girls. She who has risked her life to promote schooling for girls must wonder how her adopted homeland can turn a blind eye to the destruction of girl foetuses BECAUSE they are girls. She must listen in bewilderment as so-called feminists argue that abortion must never be hindered – even when it is based on misogyny. Where have I ended up, she must ask herself: in Pakistan, they don't recognise a girl's right to learn; in Britain, they don't recognise her right to live. END
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 13, 2013 23:05:08 GMT
The latest CATHOLIC VOICE has an open letter to the leaders of Irish pro-life organisations by Patrick McCrystal of Human Life International Ireland in which he argues for a "Smeatonite" position - that is, that in order to oppose abortion effectively one must oppose contraception as well, so that all pro-life organisations should be explicitly committed to every particular of Catholic/Christian sexual ethics. As you probably know, John Smeaton's advocacy of this position led to a major split in the British pro-life movement, with Phyllis Bowman and other founders of SPUC on the other side. I notice Mr Smeaton himself is speaking at the FAITH OF OUR FATHERS conference organised in Kilkenny this weekend by the CATHOLIC VOICE. I think we have a similar split brewing here (except insofar as we have one already with the PLC vs YD division). Personally I take the "Bowmanite" view that while I do subscribe to Catholic sexual ethics in its fullness and there are undoubtedly connections between the wider sexual apostasy and the rise of legal abortion, there is also a significant division between abortion and these other issues so that it is possible for people who are in error on those other points to see the wrongness of abortion. To drive away such people by insisting that they must sign up to "the whole package" as a precondition for being pro-lifers seems to me suicidal. It's not as if the pro-life cause was so strong it can afford to do without potential supporters. This approach may not have done much to check abortion, but the Smeatonite approach is guaranteed to have even less success IMHO. Just because we are losing doesn't mean the only alternative is winning - we could lose even worse.
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 16, 2013 20:16:36 GMT
Here's what Abortion Support Network, Action on X, and all the absolutist pro-aborts, who called Senator Jim Walsh a pornographer for describing what abortion does, want to see as "normal" in Ireland, and everywhere. An American sports star and his girlfriend, announcing their engagement in the NEW YORK TIMES, include a description of how when she got pregnant at an inconvenient point in their relationship, her willingness to have an abortion made him see her in a whole new light and they both regard it as a profoundly romantic experience. When the pro-abort demonstrators chant that they want Ireland to be like Canada, where there are no legal restrictions on abortion at all, this is what they want. www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/their-bloody-valentine/A post in the combox sums it up: EXTRACT Bernie says: September 16, 2013 at 7:57 am “Remember when the Clinton administration’s policy was to make abortion “safe, legal and rare?” In a few short years, we’ve devolved to “safe, legal, and celebrated as a romantic detail in a wedding announcement.” (from the French article cited in the post) As strongly opposed to abortion as I am, I’ve never been involved in the *pro-life movement* (can we still call it that or is it no longer PC…seriously?). But this NYT announcement points to two things, in my view. First, this illustrates that in many people’s minds, abortion should not be rare. There see no stigma at all associated with it because they find it acceptable under all circumstances. Secondly, those aspects of life that used to be viewed as personal and not appropriate to be broadly announced, have become the stuff of indiscriminate publicizing. We have become a coarser society, even though some may say it is more honest. The sense of shame has practically disappeared, to the applause of many, but I think to the detriment of our culture. It is not a pretty thing to observe…and it is pervasive. END
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 30, 2013 13:30:49 GMT
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