Why isn’t the drawing of the German guy of Hitler while the other one is a drawing of Stalin? Also, why did they blame the deaths on the “Holocaust” with the Germans while the other is blaming Stalin only? Weird…
Either case, the cartoon is still something to think about
Abortion is a choice that is very hard to make and very tough on the woman who, for whatever reason, goes through with it, yet in many parts of the world it is a choice denied to them by men.
Let me tell you a story that comes directly from my own family. A few months ago, one of my wife’s cousins lost her three year-old daughter. She was ill, and had been from birth. She was virtually blind, had severe learning difficulties, would have seizures and needed a shunt fitted to her skull that required regular draining. Whilst she was a happy soul, she was never going to have a long life, and never one that didn’t involve regular and invasive medical procedures.
Not only did this little girl face all of that during her short life, that would be her future too. It would also be the future of her mother and father. Except, in the end, she passed away, so instead, her parents had to bury her.
As a father, I cannot imagine the suffering that little girl went through during her life, and I cannot imagine what it must have been like for her parents to say goodbye.
What happens is that pro-life proponents are pro-life up to the point of birth, after which, they cease to care. ‘It’s alright, the baby is born, that’s what we wanted’. It doesn’t matter what the [b]quality of life[/b] might be. It doesn’t matter if the child might face health problems. It doesn’t matter if they might have poor [I]quality of life[/I]. The effect of any of this on the mother is completely ignored.
I’s the mother who undergoes physical changes. It’s the mother who undergoes psychological changes. It’s usually the mother whose life will undergo the biggest changes. None of this matters to the pro-life crowd. The mother’s life is irrelevant.
What of cases of rape? Should the woman be forced to keep a baby in those circumstances?
There’s more – the chief reason for unwanted pregnancies is the lack of available contraception. This is the cause of 222 million unwanted pregnancies each year. This, coupled with poor sex education and anti-women attitudes and combined with a male-led influence on something that affects women far more than it affects men, creates a very complicated issue.
I think you’ll find a line was crossed, a long time ago, by the pro-life camp. Women can die during childbirth or during pregnancy, for various reasons, yet they are denied control of their own bodies. Their lives are secondary to the baby. As I mentioned before, pro-life does not care about what happens after the birth – the camp does not care for the well-being or well-fare of mother or baby. It does not care if the child is likely to be sick, or live in pain, or what effects any of this will have on the parents. It might as well embrace suffering.
Many pro life people go to great lengths to support the mother and child in my experience. For Christians and Muslims killing unborn children is an egregious sin.
There are also many pro-life people who simply do not care what happens after birth, as long as their agenda is met. Did you know 77% of anti-abortion leaders are men? Who obviously, will never actually be pregnant, and not know all of what they entails?
I am curious to know how you would answer my earlier point regarding rape – what happens then? What happens if the mother’s life is at risk? What if the baby will be unviable?
There are many wonderful pro-life people in the US and UK. Young people are turning against abortion – despite the media acquiescence they know what is involved: the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.
The child is the father and mothers -for some reason pro abortion people ignore the father completely. He has a equal say in the child’s future.
If the mothers life is in mortal danger then under the shariah it is permitted to end the life of the child if there is no other way.
Sharia is of course not the law of the land. It does not and should not dictate policy any more than the Bible should. Abortion should not be the realm of anyone but the mother, for she will face the greatest impact by far, yet people have used all sorts of reasons – religious, cultural and otherwise – to justify what is ultimately misogyny at its finest and most insidious.
As a father myself, I would very much like to believe if my wife and I found ourselves in a situation where a decision was to be made, that I would be entitled to voice my opinion – but the final decision would and should be in the hands of my wife.
Let me ask you – if you knew, without any doubt, that your baby would face a short life of pain, with no future – would you let your child suffer, your wife suffer and yourself suffer?
Hello darthimon
I see your point about trying to prevent the suffering but I know of many families including my own who feel blessed despite the suffering they’ve experienced from having children with severe difficulties that shorten their lives even when they knew beforehand.
I’m inspired by people such as Lizzie Velasquez, Nick Vujicic and Sean Stephenson who have been able to overcome the ailments of their birth and bring light to this world despite their difficulties. People such as them would otherwise never be born if laws such as eugenics and simple abortions became widespread. In fact it seems as though our society is heading in that direction anyway…
Like I said, I don’t know. From am Emperical, evidence-driven position, the answer would be no. From the point of view of faith – well, that’s the point isn’t it? What I do believe is that no one single faith should be allowed to form policy. Every faith is different, every faith believes in its primacy and its almost inalienable right to dominate other faiths. I believe in the fundamental right of us to choose. For women to have control over their bodies.
darthimon, whilst it’s true that abortion is a very complicated issue there are many times especially in the West where people go through with it out of deliberate carelessness. I sympathise for the woman who is raped and has to deal with such a difficult challenge as to whether to keep the child or not, but I have no sympathy for people who engage in reckless pre-marital sex purposefully without condoms or other means of protection when they are fully aware of the consequences (and by this I’m not talking about spontaneous situations that may arise out of uncontrolled lust but actual planning, like pre-meditating a murder). On top of that, many women purposefully allow the child to grow in the womb to a certain extent before publicising the abortion, many times they do this in order to make money from the father or because of the government privileges they may get from undertaking the abortion at a later stage. They could have simply used a morning after pill like a sensible couple to kill the sperm or get checked up as soon as possible, but there’s no money in that you see.
As said as it can be for many women I’m telling you, abortion has become a big business for many in these times (sometimes the man is in on the job too to make money out of it) which is just sickening.
Andy I haven’t got anything to provide right now but you can check up on elective abortions, abortion doping/intentional abortions and induced abortions.
Quantifying however is always going to be a challenge when people aren’t always going to be willing to discuss their motives for doing something.
Experience and witnessing these things come a long way too, which will very rarely get into research unless highlighted significantly.
Since I can’t directly respond to everyone, I’ll offer up a comprehensive reply here.
To Unknown1, with all due respect, bringing up eugenics is to perform the Strawman fallacy. I never mentioned eugenics or the concept of it. I don’t advocate it. It’s unrelated to what I’m discussing.
What I argue for is the right to choose. I argue that if you’re going to respect life that also includes the quality of life. It is not always possible for every parent to cope with a child who has severe disabilities. It is different for every family. Hence why it should be a personal, private decision. There is no one universal standard for this, as thus does not take into account the circumstances of each family and each mother.
I’m not in any way shape or form saying children with disabilities can’t grow up to be inspirations.
Tribulation, the issue of safe sex is an interesting one to bring up, because the circumstances that can lead to pregnancy can be the result of a lack of education but also the lack of access to contraceptives. In Islam, the husband must give permission for contraceptives to be used. https://www.al-islam.org/islamic-edicts-on-family-planning/birth-control
The consent of the wife is not apparently a consideration.
Certain elements of Christianity have historically been very anti-contraception. It is ironic that the religious objectors to abortion object to means to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place – this is a problem of their own making.
By the way darthimon I would recommend listening to the TED talks of the 3 inspirations that I mentioned above if you haven’t done so already. Pretty powerful and maybe it will help to change your perspective
“Every faith is different, every faith believes in its primacy and its almost inalienable right to dominate other faiths.”
And although every faith is different I don’t believe any faith in its essence tries to dominate over the other, it is only we humans who wish that the religion that we believe in dominates over another. That’s not the problem of the religion itself but of the individual.
I’m guessing what you’re trying to say is that you’re an agnostic. You simply don’t know, and like Einstein said, agnosticism is simply a state of humility so I applaud you for your honesty and humility, it will take you far in life if you stay like that.
Paulus, for some reason I can’t issue a direct reply.
As I have already argued, this issue is not nearly as simple as that. When people claim to be pro-life, it usually comes at a cost. A cost to the quality of life of both mother and child. What happens after birth is rarely considered. The rights of the mother are relegated, ignored and marginalised behind the imposition of religious beliefs they may not even share.
Blogging Theology 
Why isn’t the drawing of the German guy of Hitler while the other one is a drawing of Stalin? Also, why did they blame the deaths on the “Holocaust” with the Germans while the other is blaming Stalin only? Weird…
Either case, the cartoon is still something to think about
LikeLike
This is a vastly over-simplified way of approaching a very difficult and sensitive issue.
LikeLike
I think it brings home powerfully the issues. Abortion kills babies.
LikeLike
Abortion is a choice that is very hard to make and very tough on the woman who, for whatever reason, goes through with it, yet in many parts of the world it is a choice denied to them by men.
LikeLike
No one has the right or the choice to kill another human being. It’s called murder. It is a sin crying out to God.
LikeLike
Let me tell you a story that comes directly from my own family. A few months ago, one of my wife’s cousins lost her three year-old daughter. She was ill, and had been from birth. She was virtually blind, had severe learning difficulties, would have seizures and needed a shunt fitted to her skull that required regular draining. Whilst she was a happy soul, she was never going to have a long life, and never one that didn’t involve regular and invasive medical procedures.
Not only did this little girl face all of that during her short life, that would be her future too. It would also be the future of her mother and father. Except, in the end, she passed away, so instead, her parents had to bury her.
As a father, I cannot imagine the suffering that little girl went through during her life, and I cannot imagine what it must have been like for her parents to say goodbye.
What happens is that pro-life proponents are pro-life up to the point of birth, after which, they cease to care. ‘It’s alright, the baby is born, that’s what we wanted’. It doesn’t matter what the [b]quality of life[/b] might be. It doesn’t matter if the child might face health problems. It doesn’t matter if they might have poor [I]quality of life[/I]. The effect of any of this on the mother is completely ignored.
I’s the mother who undergoes physical changes. It’s the mother who undergoes psychological changes. It’s usually the mother whose life will undergo the biggest changes. None of this matters to the pro-life crowd. The mother’s life is irrelevant.
What of cases of rape? Should the woman be forced to keep a baby in those circumstances?
There’s more – the chief reason for unwanted pregnancies is the lack of available contraception. This is the cause of 222 million unwanted pregnancies each year. This, coupled with poor sex education and anti-women attitudes and combined with a male-led influence on something that affects women far more than it affects men, creates a very complicated issue.
LikeLike
Are you saying that the child should have been killed in the womb?
LikeLike
I’m saying it’s not my choice. It’s the choice of the mother. You have also over-simplified again.
LikeLike
No I’m not. Human life cannot on negotiated away by these details. Killing the child is certainly NOT the mothers right. That is barbaric and evil.
LikeLike
Yet in saying that, are you not tacitly saying ‘hang the quality of life as an irrelevance?’ Likewise for the mother.
What of cases of rape? What of cases where the child will sadly not be viable? What of cases where the mother’s life is at risk?
LikeLike
No – I am saying we should not think the unthinkable. You have crossed a line that should never be crossed by a civilised human being.
Your argument could lead to the killing of old people who were difficult and a burden in others. A savage barbaric, ideology.
LikeLike
I think you’ll find a line was crossed, a long time ago, by the pro-life camp. Women can die during childbirth or during pregnancy, for various reasons, yet they are denied control of their own bodies. Their lives are secondary to the baby. As I mentioned before, pro-life does not care about what happens after the birth – the camp does not care for the well-being or well-fare of mother or baby. It does not care if the child is likely to be sick, or live in pain, or what effects any of this will have on the parents. It might as well embrace suffering.
LikeLike
Many pro life people go to great lengths to support the mother and child in my experience. For Christians and Muslims killing unborn children is an egregious sin.
LikeLike
There are also many pro-life people who simply do not care what happens after birth, as long as their agenda is met. Did you know 77% of anti-abortion leaders are men? Who obviously, will never actually be pregnant, and not know all of what they entails?
I am curious to know how you would answer my earlier point regarding rape – what happens then? What happens if the mother’s life is at risk? What if the baby will be unviable?
LikeLike
There are many wonderful pro-life people in the US and UK. Young people are turning against abortion – despite the media acquiescence they know what is involved: the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.
The child is the father and mothers -for some reason pro abortion people ignore the father completely. He has a equal say in the child’s future.
If the mothers life is in mortal danger then under the shariah it is permitted to end the life of the child if there is no other way.
LikeLike
Sharia is of course not the law of the land. It does not and should not dictate policy any more than the Bible should. Abortion should not be the realm of anyone but the mother, for she will face the greatest impact by far, yet people have used all sorts of reasons – religious, cultural and otherwise – to justify what is ultimately misogyny at its finest and most insidious.
As a father myself, I would very much like to believe if my wife and I found ourselves in a situation where a decision was to be made, that I would be entitled to voice my opinion – but the final decision would and should be in the hands of my wife.
Let me ask you – if you knew, without any doubt, that your baby would face a short life of pain, with no future – would you let your child suffer, your wife suffer and yourself suffer?
LikeLike
Darthimon, are you an atheist?
LikeLike
Hello darthimon
I see your point about trying to prevent the suffering but I know of many families including my own who feel blessed despite the suffering they’ve experienced from having children with severe difficulties that shorten their lives even when they knew beforehand.
I’m inspired by people such as Lizzie Velasquez, Nick Vujicic and Sean Stephenson who have been able to overcome the ailments of their birth and bring light to this world despite their difficulties. People such as them would otherwise never be born if laws such as eugenics and simple abortions became widespread. In fact it seems as though our society is heading in that direction anyway…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m curious as to the relevance, but I will play along. The simple answer is that I don’t know.
LikeLike
You don’t know if you are an atheist? Ask yourself: do to believe that a Creator of all things exists?
LikeLike
Like I said, I don’t know. From am Emperical, evidence-driven position, the answer would be no. From the point of view of faith – well, that’s the point isn’t it? What I do believe is that no one single faith should be allowed to form policy. Every faith is different, every faith believes in its primacy and its almost inalienable right to dominate other faiths. I believe in the fundamental right of us to choose. For women to have control over their bodies.
LikeLike
As a muslim I believe that God’s law should reign supreme. Murder is murder.
LikeLike
Would you consider it fair on Non-Muslims for them to live under Sharia Law against their will?
LikeLike
darthimon, whilst it’s true that abortion is a very complicated issue there are many times especially in the West where people go through with it out of deliberate carelessness. I sympathise for the woman who is raped and has to deal with such a difficult challenge as to whether to keep the child or not, but I have no sympathy for people who engage in reckless pre-marital sex purposefully without condoms or other means of protection when they are fully aware of the consequences (and by this I’m not talking about spontaneous situations that may arise out of uncontrolled lust but actual planning, like pre-meditating a murder). On top of that, many women purposefully allow the child to grow in the womb to a certain extent before publicising the abortion, many times they do this in order to make money from the father or because of the government privileges they may get from undertaking the abortion at a later stage. They could have simply used a morning after pill like a sensible couple to kill the sperm or get checked up as soon as possible, but there’s no money in that you see.
As said as it can be for many women I’m telling you, abortion has become a big business for many in these times (sometimes the man is in on the job too to make money out of it) which is just sickening.
LikeLike
Tribulation,
Can you refer to any research that quantifies the issues you highlight?
LikeLike
Andy I haven’t got anything to provide right now but you can check up on elective abortions, abortion doping/intentional abortions and induced abortions.
Quantifying however is always going to be a challenge when people aren’t always going to be willing to discuss their motives for doing something.
Experience and witnessing these things come a long way too, which will very rarely get into research unless highlighted significantly.
LikeLike
Since I can’t directly respond to everyone, I’ll offer up a comprehensive reply here.
To Unknown1, with all due respect, bringing up eugenics is to perform the Strawman fallacy. I never mentioned eugenics or the concept of it. I don’t advocate it. It’s unrelated to what I’m discussing.
What I argue for is the right to choose. I argue that if you’re going to respect life that also includes the quality of life. It is not always possible for every parent to cope with a child who has severe disabilities. It is different for every family. Hence why it should be a personal, private decision. There is no one universal standard for this, as thus does not take into account the circumstances of each family and each mother.
I’m not in any way shape or form saying children with disabilities can’t grow up to be inspirations.
Tribulation, the issue of safe sex is an interesting one to bring up, because the circumstances that can lead to pregnancy can be the result of a lack of education but also the lack of access to contraceptives. In Islam, the husband must give permission for contraceptives to be used. https://www.al-islam.org/islamic-edicts-on-family-planning/birth-control
The consent of the wife is not apparently a consideration.
Certain elements of Christianity have historically been very anti-contraception. It is ironic that the religious objectors to abortion object to means to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place – this is a problem of their own making.
This is however, fundamentally about control. http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/abortion-choice-and-christianity/
LikeLike
Do you think the right to choose for the mother supersedes the child’s right to life?
I suspect most religious people believe the right to life supersedes the right to choose.
It would also be good to consider the psychological trauma related to abortions. This seems to be something rarely discussed
LikeLike
By the way darthimon I would recommend listening to the TED talks of the 3 inspirations that I mentioned above if you haven’t done so already. Pretty powerful and maybe it will help to change your perspective
“Every faith is different, every faith believes in its primacy and its almost inalienable right to dominate other faiths.”
And although every faith is different I don’t believe any faith in its essence tries to dominate over the other, it is only we humans who wish that the religion that we believe in dominates over another. That’s not the problem of the religion itself but of the individual.
I’m guessing what you’re trying to say is that you’re an agnostic. You simply don’t know, and like Einstein said, agnosticism is simply a state of humility so I applaud you for your honesty and humility, it will take you far in life if you stay like that.
LikeLike
Paulus, for some reason I can’t issue a direct reply.
As I have already argued, this issue is not nearly as simple as that. When people claim to be pro-life, it usually comes at a cost. A cost to the quality of life of both mother and child. What happens after birth is rarely considered. The rights of the mother are relegated, ignored and marginalised behind the imposition of religious beliefs they may not even share.
LikeLike