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What she describes here as "hyperbole & misinformation" involves quoting, verbatim and in context, from anti-abortion literature and spokespeople, and quoting directly from anti-abortion legislation.
Anti-abortion spokespeople have not been shy, or quiet, or cryptic, or possible to ignore. Their goals have been stated clearly and loudly for decades. As has their very public reasoning in defense of those goals.
Also, many thousands of us used to BE active, vocal pro-lifers.
Also, many thousands of us used to BE active, vocal pro-lifers.
We know and can still recite all the arguments WE personally used to make in defense of the proposition that abortion should be illegal.
We also can and do now go on to explain why we eventually found those arguments wrong, insufficient, untenable, incoherent & harmful.
We also can and do now go on to explain why we eventually found those arguments wrong, insufficient, untenable, incoherent & harmful.
None of this is welcome, heard, or engaged by our former friends in the anti-abortion movement. They're not allowed to listen, and few allow themselves to listen.
Instead, they repeat nonsense about wantons using abortion "as birth control" for the sake of "convenience."
Instead, they repeat nonsense about wantons using abortion "as birth control" for the sake of "convenience."
That bad faith strawslut caricature is then used as target practice, which is pretty dishonest and sleazy. And strong evidence of the fearful unwillingness to engage actual pro-choice arguments in good faith -- a fearful unwillingness we understand because we REMEMBER it. ...
One reason I repeatedly quote the defense of abortion from Norman Geisler's late-'70s Zondervan Press "Christian Ethics" textbook is because it provides a decent clear statement of the basic pro-choice argument Geisler-type evangelicals otherwise refuse to hear today.
"The rights to life, health, and self-determination — i.e., the rights to personhood — of the fully human mother take precedence over that of the potentially human embryo." A potential person has great value, an actual person has greater value. ...
If anti-abortion folks want to hear or engage that, it's right there. Right there in a 40-year-old Zondervan Press book on ethics.
But instead, anti-abortion folks would rather go on about how they -- and they alone -- are "concerned" about "protecting the unborn."
This claim throws biology out the window. It throws subsidiarity out the window. It throws women out the window. ...
This claim throws biology out the window. It throws subsidiarity out the window. It throws women out the window. ...
You know who actually "protects the unborn"? The women (inter alia) whose bodies host and feed and nurture these developing potential persons. Not you. Not the crusty old wife-beaters in the Alabama legislature. THEM. Only and always them.
Trust them to do the job that nature and nature's God has entrusted and uniquely positioned them to do. Trust them to understand and to decide how best to do it.
Trust them. Period. Full stop.
Trust them. Period. Full stop.
It is not hyperbole or misinformation to say that those seeking to criminalize abortion do not trust women. It is absolutely accurate, demonstrably and measurably true. That is the crux of the disagreement.
