Josh Benner

Tag: Abortion

  • “You’re not pro-life, you’re pro birth:” And other ridiculous arguments

    “You’re not pro-life, you’re pro birth:” And other ridiculous arguments

    A common argument I hear in the abortion debate is that pro life people aren’t really pro-life, we’re pro birth. That if we were really pro-life, we’d support all sorts of government programs. Federally backed universal pre-K, expanded maternity leave, etc, etc, etc. Furthermore, we also must personally be adopting and fostering babies and donating to help support mothers who don’t want to have babies. 

    To be fair, many pro-life people do those things. Christians, for instance, adopt babies at a rate that is twice the national average. Pro-life people open up pregnancy centers to care for mothers. There are also innumerable government programs which help provide food, healthcare, and other necessities. During this formula shortage (and as the father of an eight month old, I’m in the thick of it), I learned that like half the babies in America qualify for WIC . 

    Could these programs be expanded even more? Sure. I’d be on board with that. But here’s part of the issue. There’s always one more government program people can think of.

    I also think that it should be easier for people to adopt. If it wasn’t prohibitively expensive, many more people would adopt. But just because I haven’t adopted a baby, that doesn’t mean that I’m just pro-birth. 

    That’s like saying that if a person didn’t personally host a Jewish person in their home during the reign of the Third Reich, that they didn’t really oppose the Holocaust. Yes, I realize that’s not a perfect analogy (as far more babies have been aborted than people died in the Holocaust). I know people will say it’s not the same. But it’s a sad thing that we can’t at least agree that tens of millions of aborted babies is a tragedy. 

    It’s such a bizarre exercise where pro-choice people try to dictate what pro-life people must do in order to actually be pro-life. And if we don’t, then people should be allowed to kill their babies. So basically, it’s a hostage situation. 

    Now for the person who’s pro-choice, if pro-lifers did all of these things, would the pro-choice person then be pro-life too? Of course not! (At least, not anyone I’ve ever talked to who’s pro-choice). Because it’s not simply about a lack of resources, but it’s about a fundamental belief that it’s morally acceptable (and even laudatory) for a person to kill their not yet born baby. 

    For that reason, the argument has always seemed to be to be disingenuous. 

    So pro-life people aren’t really pro-life if we’re not progressive liberals. That has always seemed pretty convenient. But here’s the thing. 

    If you’re pro-choice, then that means you are just as supportive of a woman choosing to abort OR to have the baby. But if you’re truly supportive of a woman having the baby, then what are YOU doing for that child? You also need to adopt him or her. 

    I mentioned earlier in this piece that tens of millions of babies have been aborted in this country. In the wake of the Roe reversal, I’ve wondered if the radicalism of the abortion movement was part of what led to the pro-life movement having the political will to see numerous states pass laws which are pro life.

    We had been told it could never happen. Abortion went from being something “safe, legal, and rare,” something that was an unfortunate reality to something that became glorified. Not among everyone who’s had an abortion, but you’d see the “shout your abortion” movement and those talking about having had multiple abortions and treating abortion as birth control. It became grotesque. Blue states pushed for late term abortion laws where a fully developed fetus could be killed.

    I’ve heard people talk about how much of a step back this is for America. The Mississippi law that led to the legal challenges that led to the overturning of Roe challenged a Mississippi abortion ban (unless there was an emergency situation) after 15 weeks. That’s later than most of Europe allows abortions. 

    But it wasn’t good enough. The radical abortion movement in America fought any limitations on abortion. Even with a fully developed fetus, even with a fetus that had a developed nervous system and that could feel pain. And we were told that such actions were good things. 

    The taking of innocent life was never good.

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  • Roe overturned

    Roe overturned

    I still remember the moment when my wife got an update on her phone about a leaked Supreme Court document that SCOTUS was going to overturn the historic Roe v Wade decision from 1973.

    Before that, I never thought I’d see the day. Today, it became official as the court overturns a constitutional right to abortion.

    The aftermath of this decision will lead to intense debate. From the most ardent supporters of abortion, there will be sackcloth and ashes. Over the past several weeks, we’ve heard the various talking points about how necessary abortion is, and about how women will just do them illegally.

    Overturning Roe doesn’t make abortion illegal. But it does give states broader authority to limit abortion. Numerous states already had laws to limit abortion already in place in case Roe was overturned.

    Sadly, all abortions will not yet be stopped and there is still more work to do. But lives will be saved.

    Before Roe v. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court in 1973, 30 states had made abortion illegal and it was only allowed under certain circumstances in 16 more. We hear a lot about democracy and “threats to democracy.” Roe was a threat to our humanity. Roe went against the will of the people and in the process, led to horrendous casualties. 

    We’ve made termination the easy way out over choosing life. We’ve undermined the value of life of those conceived in cases of rape and incest and made them political pawns as if their lives are expendable. We’ve talked about people being raised in less stable families as if they’d be better not being able to live at all. Millions of people who have lived through similarly challenging upbringings would beg to differ. 

    In the 50 years since Roe, I think of the sixty millions of babies who have been aborted and I don’t understand how all people aren’t heartbroken by that number. Tens of millions of lives have been created and terminated. Tens of millions of lives have been created yet never got to be lived. We’ve devalued life. We’ve taken something precious and made it a problem to be dealt with. We’ve taken something as tragic as abortion and turned it into a big business, both for abortion providers and those who work to lobby on its behalf. 

    Fifty years of this barbarity. I think of the millions of lives lost but also the kids and grandkids those people would have had. At the end of the movie Schindler’s List, they give Liam Neeson (who plays Oskar Schindler) a ring with an inscription from the Talmud which says “whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” 

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  • Supreme Court strikes down abortion restrictions

    United States Supreme Court Building

    In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has struck down June Medical Services v Russo, a Louisiana law which required doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s four liberal justices. Roberts said he disagreed with the ruling but voted with the majority because of a legal doctrine of stare decisis which calls for following establish precedents.

    Opponents of the law argue that admitting privileges are unnecessary and that it adds an extra layer of difficulty for abortion providers and reduces wren’s ability to pursue abortions.

    In 2016, the Supreme Court overturned a nearly identical Texas law. For that decision, Roberts had ruled against the majority but overturned his prior ruling to go along with precedent. While the laws of the two states were similar, it has been argued that the situation of the states was different as Louisiana hospitals do not have the same admittance standards as Texas.

    Roberts wrote:
    “The legal doctrine of stare decisis requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike. The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana’s law cannot stand under our precedents.”

    I’m not a lawyer or a jurist. I understand that precedents matter. But it’s a bad precedent. States don’t have a right to decide minimum healthcare standards for doctors who perform abortions?

    Daniel Horowitz of Conservative Review points out: states regulate the standards for licensed professionals all the time – everything from lemonade stands to mowing grass – even when “an objective assessment might suggest that those same tasks could be performed by others.” But when it comes to the sacred ideals of abortion, the state is somehow powerless to regulate.

    He says that a precedent can’t be changed without special circumstances.

    We can’t overturn a bad decision from four years ago for a ruling which favors life, and safety, and state’s rights? Precedent matters but it’s not the end all be all.

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  • British judge orders woman to have abortion

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    Update: A British appeals court has overturned this decision. I’m pleased by that result, however this story is still a chilling reminder of the control a government can try to exercise over citizens. 
    A British court has ordered a British woman to have an abortion. The unnamed woman is in her 20s, but due to a mental disability, has the mental capacity of a child between the ages of six and nine.
    The judge called the decision “heartbreaking” but also believes that the ruling is in the best interest of the mother.
    According to reports, the woman wanted to keep the baby. Her mother, a former midwife, had said she would help her daughter raise the child. Yet the judge still ruled against her.

    (more…)

  • On abortion, red states are getting redder while blue states get bluer

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    Separated by the Mississippi River, Illinois and Missouri are in two different worlds when it comes to abortion. It’s a microcosm of much of the nation. As several states have passed new, strict laws on abortion, including Missouri, other states have passed legislation to further diminish the rights of the unborn.

    Last week, Missouri passed one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation, outlawing abortion after eight weeks. Perhaps of greater significance is that the final abortion clinic standing in Missouri is expected to lose its license at the end of this week. In a statement from Planned Parenthood, they say that the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services is refusing to renew the license of the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis. If that clinic shuts down, it will be the first time since 1974 that a state was without an abortion clinic.

    Planned Parenthood has taken the matter to court. (more…)