Ann Althouse reviews the Supreme Court’s decisions on abortion and proposes the following:
Here’s an idea for an abortion regulation that I’ve never heard anyone else discuss, but which occurred to me as I’ve read and reread the Supreme Court cases. A woman seeking an abortion must sign a statement: I have reflected on the nature of the procedure I am about to undergo, and I attest to my sincere belief that it will not kill a human being.
Read the whole thing.
The Weekly Standard has a piece up in which Nancy Pelosi is quoted, and she seems to be saying that she saying that she supports abortion because she’s a Catholic. (H/T, Evi L. Blogger Lady at Batshit Crazy News). I am not a Catholic, but from what I know of that church’s doctrine, I find this mind-bogglingly weird.
Pope Francis was unavailable for comment.
The New York Post offers evidence that Kermit Gosnell may not be much of an outlier among abortionists. (H/T, Patterico)
All of us are pro-choice to the extent that we believe that we should be free to choose the way we wish. The anarchists among us would agree with that point of view wholeheartedly. Libertarians might moderate that to the extent of limiting choices that affect another person. At the other end of the spectrum, nanny-statists and Progressives would say that choice must be limited by their understanding of what is good for us, by which they really mean the choices they choose.
At the silly end of things, nanny-statists such as Mayor Bloomberg want to take away your right to choose a Big Gulp. They argue that it’s bad for your health and that you’ll be a burden on the healthcare system, yada, yada, yada. At the serious end of things, they want to take away your right to choose to defend yourself with a modern sporting rifle loaded with a normal capacity magazine. They argue that … umm … well, actually they don’t have a logical argument; they just don’t like the idea that you might have a gun. They have to make a stretch to bring some other party’s interest to limit your choices.
OTOH, most Progressives favor a right for a mother to end the life of her child in utero. For those of us who look at the DNA of a child and see a member of our species from conception, it’s clear that an abortion affects an innocent party. Others may disagree about when that child deserves protection, but essentially no one advocates the killing of viable children born alive. The question of when to protect a child’s life is one of those inconvenient questions that many would rather not wrestle with.
That, I think, is the reason for the main stream media’s avoidance of the Gosnell murder cases. I brings that question into focus.
That’s the one line I never hear from Progressives during coverage of stories such as the Gosnell trial.
A reader from Western Maryland writes:
A thought occurred to me while catching up on my daily reading. With all the rhetoric over gun control being spewed out and the constant claim that “if it saves just one life”, then why not throw it back in their face with abortion. If it will save just one life, shouldn’t abortion be overturned. Fifty-five million lives have been murdered in 40 years vs how many from guns. We can even treat Planned Parenthood like high capacity clips, or better yet, like McDonald’s use to advertise on their signs, “Over 50 million served.”
I can hear the argument from the left stating that it’s just tissue matter and doesn’t really count, but why is it considered as such when in the animal kingdom it’s not? How many babies have been aborted during the third trimester and didn’t Obama support such procedures. Again, if just one life is saved? Just saying …
I was going to write a post about my reaction to the foolishness of Todd Akin. Rebecca Hamilton has an essay at Patheos that covers almost all my points, and she does a better job than I would have.
Go read her post, but before you do, let me just make one point. Rape is no longer a capital crime, and, even when it was, we hanged the rapist not the baby. The baby is one of the victims. Punishing the victim compounds the crime, so, no, I don’t support allowing abortions in the case of rape.
