Pro-Life Flash Mob in Chicago Surprises “Walk for Choice”
February 28th, 2011
You have to see this. (Be sure to watch the video.)
The question at the end of LifeNews.com’s article says it all: “Which side has more joy?”
(For the storm troopers who besieged NOM’s Summer for Marriage Tour at every stop last July and August: This is how to do a counter demonstration people! Don’t intimidate, be non-threatening, don’t charge the opposing rally’s stage, stand off and respect the other assembly’s right to free speech, and above all else, do it with joy – not hatred.)
By the way: Did you notice how young the overwhelming majority of the Pro-Life demonstrators were? They are the future, my friends.
You can watch additional videos here.
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Awesome!
People are free to choose to keep or abort a fetus. That’s why it’s called “pro-choice”. What is solved by taking away that choice, not that that’s going to happen anytime soon?
Babies stop getting killed.
@Leland
Amen.
It’s interesting that on so many of these social issues, the difference in opinion comes down to whether we are focusing on the rights of children or the desires of adults.
For example, Sean thinks that it’s OK for abortion to be legal because “people are free to choose to keep or abort a fetus.” Notice that the perspective is sharply focused on what adults are allowed to choose, not on what is good for the child. But the pro-life argument says that adult decisions must take second place to the welfare of the child (in this case, the child’s very right to life).
Or consider in-vitro fertilization. Those in favor of it would make their arguments based on the desires (or they would probably say “rights”) of a married couple to conceive children who are genetically descended from them, even if they have fertility problems. But those who are against this practice focus on the rights of children to be conceived within marriage, and on the rights of children not be stored indefinitely as frozen embryos in a lab.
The same dichotomy exists on the topic of same sex “marriage.” Those who favor SSM focus on the rights of adults to marry the person that they want to marry. Those who oppose SSM focus on the rights of children to be raised by a mother and a father (preferably their biological mother and father whenever possible).
But if babies are getting killed, then that is wrong, period. The fact that some of the people who oppose baby-killing have other problems (like being pro-war, pro-torture, or pro-death penalty) is a separate issue, that has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of killing babies. Yes, people who oppose abortion are imperfect in many ways, myself included. But our imperfections don’t magically make abortion morally right.
And I can’t speak for Leland, but I for one am against abortion as well as against all the things you named (war, torture, and the death penalty).
So then are you saying you’re anti-war (even for the sake of national defense) but pro-abortion?
But it’s not as if pregnancies weren’t terminated before Roe v. Wade. Do you honestly believe that outlawing abortion will prevent women from terminating some pregnancies?
Banning abortion will lead to back-alley abortions and medical complications leading sometimes to infertility and possibly even death, just as happened before Roe v. Wade. Why would it be any different now?
Also, I’m sorry but there is a difference between a 6-10 week fetus (which is when a huge portion of abortions occur) and a child. It’s like the difference between an acorn and a sapling. I’m not actually comparing a 6-week old fetus to an acorn, mind you, I’m just saying let’s be honest in the way we speak.
Yes. The abortion rate with legalized abortion in the U.S. is over one million abortions per year. I think it is safe to say that there were not one million illegal abortions per year prior to Roe v. Wade.
Medical complications leading to infertility and even death occur in some legal abortion facilities. Dr. Gosnell who has been in the news recently is one example.
Then are you against abortion after a certain point in the pregnancy? If so, then I think you would find common ground with several pro-life initiatives that seek to limit late-term abortions.
Moreover, the best solution to this problem of “back-alley abortions” is to provide women with better choices, so that they don’t feel the need to resort to such desparate measures. It seems to me that this is a better approach than sending these women off to have their unborn children killed legally and “safely.” Women deserve better than abortion, and I believe that is true whether the abortion is in a back alley or in a Planned Parenthood clinic.
@Paul H
“I think it is safe to say that there were not one million illegal abortions per year prior to Roe v. Wade.”
You may want to think again:
“http://www.now.org/issues/abortion/roe30/beforeafter.html”
The problem is, it was an illegal practice. The numbers, if available, are probably less than the actual. Even in my small mid western town (of 15,000) there was an abortionist in the 1920’s and 30’s who did a lucrative business. One of the reasons for his success was that he had his office across the street from a hotel and hired a nurse to do post op care. The woman would have her abortion and then be admitted to the hotel across the street where she was cared for and monitored. Because of the high survival rate, women came from all over. I am sure that few of them were ever recorded anywhere.
“Moreover, the best solution to this problem of “back-alley abortions” is to provide women with better choices, so that they don’t feel the need to resort to such desparate measures.”
Which is why abortion is legal, it provides a CHOICE.
Your source says: “Estimates of the annual number of illegal abortions in the 1950s and 60s range from 200,000 to 1.2 million, even though abortion procedures were unsafe and often life-threatening, in addition to being illegal.”
So if we take the midpoint of that range, that would be about 700,000 per year. That is a lot, but still it is only half the number of LEGAL abortions that were performed as early as 1978.
I found some interesting statistics in table 1 of the following document, which is from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/psrh/full/4000608.pdf
Those statistics show that starting in 1973, the year of Roe v. Wade, the number of abortions was about 745,000. Then the number gradually went up each year, going beyond 1.5 million for the first time in 1980 (and staying over 1.5 million per year all the way to 1992). So unless there were more ILLEGAL abortions per year prior to 1973 than there were LEGAL abortions each of the first few years after Roe v. Wade (which seems unlikely), then these data pretty clearly indicate that legalizing abortion also made it more common.
(And yes, I realize that abortion was already legal in some states prior to Roe v. Wade, but Roe v. Wade made it legal across the entire U.S.)
I said BETTER choices. 😉
@Paul H
“So unless there were more ILLEGAL abortions per year prior to 1973 than there were LEGAL abortions each of the first few years after Roe v. Wade (which seems unlikely), then these data pretty clearly indicate that legalizing abortion also made it more common.”
Again, I will not be so bold as to make claims without data. However, a procedure that is illegal, that will cause a doctor to lose their license and be jailed, is PROBABLY going to be UNDER reported.
“I said BETTER choices.”
I’d like to hear some.