"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated."
- D.A. Carson
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
As a follow-up to this post, Mary Elizabeth Williams writes at Salon.com: So What If Abortion Ends Life?. A snippet, below:
Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.I think we're entering a new phase in the abortion debate, one in which the pro-choice side is going to become more comfortable with the, in my view obvious, admission that abortion is the murder of a human being, while still defending the practice even more strongly than before. As Ms. Williams writes, "All life is not equal".
It's sobering to realize that support for abortion rights is on the upswing in our country, after a number of years where it looked like the tide might be turning toward the pro-life position. At least now there will be more honesty in the debate, but what can you say to someone who agrees with your basic stance that abortion is murder but supports it anyway?
Come quickly Lord Jesus.
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Comments on ""So What If Abortion Ends Life?"":
2. Karl
- 01/29/2013 8:32 am CST
I wonder whether she would say the same thing applies to a 1-week old infant. And if not, I wonder what distinction she makes. The infant is hardly more "autonomous" or less dependent than is the fetus. I guess one distinction is that *only* the mother and her body can sustain the fetus absent extraordinary and invasive intervention, whereas it's more possible for 3rd parties to step in and feed/shelter the infant. But that's a fine line to draw and it doesn't really square with her dismissal of the rights of "non-autonomous entities" when they conflict with the rights of autonomous entities.
3. Tony
- 01/29/2013 12:42 pm CST
death-panel-loving
Is Mary Williams associating healthcare with the topic of abortion? Or did she use the term in a general sense? I can see that this kind of logic (all life is not equal) taken in the area of euthanasia as well. You are 76 years old, you have stage 5 terminal cancer. You could go through $1m worth of cancer treatment and burden the tax payers and you would probably die anyway, or we can end your life 'honorably' - just sign here please.
Folks, you are being conditioned today like an athlete in training for the government of the end times. Slowly our freedoms are being eroded and those nice little iPhones we carry around will be imbedded in our skin one day.
Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
4. Quaid
- 01/29/2013 10:33 pm CST
Wow. Simply astounding.
Honestly, if this is where the debate is heading, it is the beginning of the end of abortion. Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I don't see people supporting this line of reasoning with a straight face.
Sure, sit behind a computer and write this, but I'm not sure how anyone says this with a straight face in a human conversation. I don't see how anyone could look another sentient person in the eye and say such things. I almost wonder if this is really a pro-life ploy to set up a straw man.
For me, this is literally unbelievable. I simply do not believe the person who wrote this really believes it.
5. damien
- 01/30/2013 8:05 am CST
i think the point we have to make and maintain is that the value, significance, and dignity of all human beings stands or falls here. logically and morally there's no way around it.
6. Bill
- 01/30/2013 8:20 am CST
Honestly, if this is where the debate is heading, it is the beginning of the end of abortion. Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I don't see people supporting this line of reasoning with a straight face.
Quaid, I hope you're right but don't ever underestimate human nature. I think she's just giving voice to what most people think anyway. My sense is that most thinking people have known for a long time that abortion kills a person. Rationalization kicks in, though, and they do just what this woman has done: they arrive at the position that "all life is not equal".
That's one reason we get into sidetracks such as abortion in the case of rape and incest, complete with shrill moralizing by the pro-choice side. I'm not saying those aren't important subjects, but they are only applicable in a very small percentage of cases. But that's a lot easier to rationalize than abortion as a result of normal irresponsible behavior when all is healthy and progressing.
I don't see how anyone could look another sentient person in the eye and say such things. I almost wonder if this is really a pro-life ploy to set up a straw man.
For me, this is literally unbelievable. I simply do not believe the person who wrote this really believes it.
This is not a pro-life ploy. And it's not unbelievable. I didn't read the entire comments thread, but she gets support from others.
7. nhe
- 01/30/2013 8:46 am CST
Can anyone muse on how this new position might respond to comparisons to slavery and Nazism when stating out loud that all human life is not equal?
Certainly they know they're going to hear that response.
And it seems that this would then take us back to all the old arguments - particularly viability (the scientifically agreed upon gestational age that a child could survive if born pre-mature).
8. Quaid
- 01/31/2013 7:38 am CST
From a legal perspective, her comments fall flat, as well. If this country's government was founded upon a principle that states that "all men are created equal," then she must realize that her supposed rationale ("all life is not equal") is a philosophy that cannot stand under American law.
So, it seems that while she believes abortion is appropriate at any time, based on the preference of the mother, she must also recognize such practice as illegal in our country.
Once again, if this rationale is truly being accepted, I believe it is the beginning of the end of abortion in the United States.
9. Flyaway
- 02/03/2013 10:37 am CST
"October Baby" is streaming on Netflix now. It is very well done and sure helps one to understand that the tissues are a baby.
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It's creepy that someone could take this same language and apply it to the perspective of a Nazi justifying killing the jews. "Hitler is the boss", they could argue - Darwinistic naturalism taken to it's furthest natural extent.
I'm convinced that much more ground could be made in the abortion issue arguing not just for the morality side, but also for the medical side, that as a surgery abortion has been scientifically linked to a higher risk of breast cancer and subsequent birth defects, and the surgery itself can potentially damage the woman with internal bleeding, hemorrhaging and/or death.