Late term abortions are rare? Let’s explore that

My side of the debate often argues against abortion by citing late term abortion. That’s fine, but the opposing side will counter by saying that late term abortions are rare. OK, I’m willing to go with that, but I do have some questions for those people:

1) Would you be willing to place restrictions on late term abortions, since they are so rare anyway?

2) Does it bother you that some abortions are late term? If so, why?

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Is the pro-choice position so weak that it needs to be propped by force?

I think this legislation and the decision upholding it provides evidence for the weakness of the pro-choice position:

Appeals Court Upholds California Law Forcing Pregnancy Centers to Promote Abortions

The federal appeals court that is considered the most liberal in the country has upheld an onerous California law that forces pregnancy centers to promote abortions…

… the California law infringes upon the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment by forcing pro-life pregnancy help organizations to disseminate a state-sponsored message effectively referring for abortions…

The law will force 150 local pregnancy help non-profits, including the 74 state-licensed free ultrasound facilities, to give each of its clients the following disclaimer, which includes the phone number of a county social services office where a client could obtain an abortion covered by Medi-Cal.

The notice, which the law specifies must either be posted as a public notice in “22-point type,” “distributed to all clients in no less than 14-point font” or distributed digitally “at the time of check-in or arrival,” applies to all of the entities—even those licensed by the state.

“California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services (including all FDA-approved methods of contraception), prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women. To determine whether you qualify, contact the county social services office at [insert the telephone number].”

Why not just leave crisis pregnancy centers alone? It is as if leaving them alone is a great risk that needs to be attenuated by government action. They even specified the size of the font. Micromanagement is a sign of insecurity. I think the people who believe in this crap are scared.

Pro-choice puritans absolutely rely on the coercive power of the state to advance their unjust and grossly inaccurate view of the human body. Those views don’t stand up on their own; hence, their need to use the state to advance them. Men and women really ARE different, and sex actually DOES make babies. We are not simply a spirit or a mind lodged inside a human body. Every human being is significant starting from the moment of conception, including YOU. If even one human life is insignificant because of its location and size, then that diminishes the significance of everybody, since we all started out that way.

The prolife position upholds equality, but in a different way than the prochoice position. Every human life has equal dignity and an equal right to life, starting at conception.

Sara, a song about Stevie Nicks’ abortion

I used to like this song. The melody is pretty, but once I found out its meaning, I couldn’t enjoy it like I used to. From LifeSiteNews:

Stevie Nicks is no stranger to rumours. She finally confirmed longstanding conjecture that she wrote one of her best-known songs partly about the child she conceived with Eagles frontman Don Henley, then aborted.

Henley said more than 20 years ago that the Fleetwood Mac song Sara, which hit number 7 on the Billboard charts in 1979, was about the baby they never saw.

“I believe, to the best of my knowledge, [that Nicks] became pregnant by me. And she named the kid Sara, and she had an abortion – and then wrote the song of the same name to the spirit of the aborted baby,” he told GQ magazine in 1991. “I was building my house at the time, and there’s a line in the song that says, ‘And when you build your house, call me.’”

In a special interview with Billboard magazine on Friday, Nicks said their baby inspired many of the song’s lyrics.

Ronald Reagan said, “I notice that everybody for abortion has already been born.” He naively thought that once it was proven scientifically that the unborn were human, this would change people’s minds. But it didn’t. Why? I think one explanation can be found in gnosticism, which I define as a denial of the importance of the human body in God’s plan for salvation. The lyrics of Sara might be a good example of gnostic thinking. Why is Nicks’ singing to the child as if nothing significant about their relationship has changed? Maybe it’s because what she did to her baby’s body doesn’t matter, and the baby’s body itself doesn’t matter.

The pro-choice view of justice is not rational

I had an exchange with someone regarding my assertion that fertile couples do not have a right to pregnancy-free coitus. Her basic claim was that:

“…forcing women to give birth in unwanted pregnancies is inhumane.”

“Forcing women to give birth…” Who is doing the forcing? Do you see how she has tried to shift the burden onto others? There is no responsibility whatsoever being taken, just a irrational appeal to justice.

It is irrational because fertile couples don’t have a right to pregnancy-free coitus. There is no contraceptive method that is 100% effective, and so for fertile couples to claim a right to pregnancy-free coitus is to claim a right to the impossible. It should be obvious that nobody has a right to that which is impossible, and so this is why I say it is not rational. When you see Catholics talking about “the contraceptive mentality,” this is what they are talking about. Purely recreational, baby-free sex is a very seductive idea, and using contraceptives feeds right into it.

If we accept the pro-choice premise, that fertile couples DO have a right to pregnancy-free coitus, then it makes sense to claim that an unwanted pregnancy is an injustice because then the baby is like an unwanted intruder. But since that premise is not rational, we must reject it. Thus, carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term is not an injustice. In fact, it is a profound act of humanity to bring another human being into the world.

 

Nobody has a right to pregnancy-free coitus

Edit on 8/30/2016: after publishing this, the interaction I had in the comments below helped me clarify this concept. Going forward, you will see me referring to the concept like this: “Fertile couples don’t have a right to pregnancy-free coitus,” rather than “Nobody has a right to pregnancy-free coitus.” The first phrase is more accurate. If you read the comments where I discuss menopausal women, you’ll see how I came to this conclusion.

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In Catholic circles there is an idea known as “the contraceptive mentality.” I’m not crazy about the phrase because it isn’t obvious what it means. At least, it wasn’t to me. It was only in the last four months or so that I understood it, even though I embraced the Church’s teaching on contraception 5-6 years ago, before I even officially became Catholic. Once I figured out what the phrase meant, I coined my own phrase:

Nobody has a right to pregnancy-free coitus.

That seems more clear to me. It makes it easier to see how contraception shifts the thought process surrounding sex. Even though not every act of sex makes a baby, in point of fact sex is a normatively and presumptively fertile act. Contraception shifts the thought process at this point. It makes people believe that sex is normatively and presumptively sterile. Once sex is viewed this way, then link between contraception and abortion becomes apparent. If sex is supposed to be sterile, then getting rid of an unwanted baby is justified on the grounds that the pregnancy was unintended. The use of contraceptives buttresses the idea that sex is a purely recreational activity; sex becomes a baby making activity only when the baby is explicitly wanted. Thus, contraception devalues all human life.

Superficially, it seems like contraception would reduce abortion, but this has not been the case. As Janet Smith said:

“There’s not a country in the world which had abortion illegal… in which contraception gets introduced and widely used, that’s when you get pressure to change the laws against abortion.”

And why is that? Because contraception makes people believe that they have a right to pregnancy-free coitus. Even SCOTUS noted the link between contraception and abortion in its 1992 decision known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey:

“…in some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception . . . .  for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail.”

That’s SCOTUS, a totally secular organization, making the same connection between contraception and abortion that the Catholic Church makes, but using the link as a way to uphold abortion. SCOTUS’ logic is that contraception gives people a right to pregnancy-free coitus, but since contraception can fail, then people need abortion as a way to uphold that right. It is obviously faulty logic, but people are so committed to purely recreational sex, and the false belief that contraception gives them 100% control over their fertility, that they can’t see how tenuous the logic is.

Freedom and fertility

For a long time now I have wanted to elaborate on why I believe the unpredictable and spontaneous fertility between opposite-sex couples is a facet of freedom. My thoughts are not well developed. But I thought that by writing them down, it might help me develop them further.

I see a spectrum in regards to fertility. The spectrum goes from what I call Control, to Marriage, to Chaos.

Control

Highly controlled and mechanized fertility amounts to a demand, a command, for somebody else to be conceived. The person doing the demanding, the commanding, has more freedom. After all, they are freed from the constraints of marriage, and can will another person into existence. But this level of control comes at the expense of the one being conceived. They are not conceived in freedom, they are conceived by the demand of another. Often money is part of their conception. Some are calling it slavery. I share this sentiment.

Chaos

If we swing to the other end of the spectrum, we arrive at uncontrolled fertility. This is chaos. For example, conception in rape or children in poor communities without fathers. We acknowledge the full humanity and dignity of anybody conceived in any manner, but we must also acknowledge that not all forms of conception should be dignified. Some lead to much sorrow, confusion, and violence.

Control and chaos are both seen as ways for people to exercise ever-increasing amounts of freedom. But it’s a trade: both seem more free than the restraints imposed by marriage, but those children are less free than their parents. The net result is that freedom decreases throughout the culture.

Marriage

I see a middle ground between Control and Chaos. It is called marriage, where new lives spring up spontaneously, as the result of two people expressing their love for one another. They are conceived in love, without a demand to exist, without ever being rejected, connected to both halves of who they are. They are a gift, a free gift. Free as in, conceived without the demand to be conceived, without the perpetual burden of a fractured family.

When humans spontaneously emerge from the love inside marriage, that is something that is never directly controlled, nor is it chaotic since their ontological wholeness is respected and reflected in the one-flesh union of the father and the mother. This spontaneity is a feature of human freedom, not a bug. The one-flesh union of a man and a woman is the middle ground that respects the freedom of the next generation. It seems to me that people conceived and raised like that are the freest of us all.