You know that rhetorical trick where one takes the opponent’s argument, extends it to its own logical conclusion, and asks: "Is that what you really want"? He or she is then supposed to recoil in confusion and respond: "Of course not." Well, I tried it on the BBC’s Moral Maze a few months back and it failed completely. The issue was abortion, I was on the panel, and the witness was Dr Ellie Lee, the co-ordinator of the ProChoice Forum and lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Kent.
Dr Lee stated her mantra that "abortion should be available as early as possible and as late as necessary". So, I asked her, suppose a mother gave birth to a baby at full term, and then just as the umbilical cord had been cut, found that the infant repelled her. Should she be allowed to have the baby killed? "I think so, yes," replied Dr Lee. There and then, live on Radio 4, I dried up. I suppose if I had been a lawyer I would have said: "I have no further questions." But fortunately the presenter, Michael Buerk, noticed my inability to continue and smoothly stepped in with a question of his own. [Source][Via Relapsed Catholic]
This at least is an intellectually consistent answer. If you can kill a child through abortion before birth then why should you have any squeamishness about it afterwards. The Human Fairy did not descend upon the child at birth and touch it with it’s magic wand bestowing humanity and rights. If only more pro-abortion supporters took off their masks of verbal obfuscation and say what their intellectual ideas really lead to. Maybe it is a good sign that they feel they still can’t come out fully in the open and that society still sees after birth infanticide as wrong. i just wonder how long it will remain that way?
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I can spend 12 million pounds better. Maybe the British governemtn can donate them to me!
“Should she be allowed to have the baby killed? “I think so, yes,” replied Dr Lee.
This is the point where liberals think, “since abortion is okay, therefore infanticide must be okay”.
This is also the point where conservatives think, “since infanticide is wrong, therefore abortion is wrong.”
At least we can all agree there is no difference.
The woman’s crazy. She should be put in jail.
I was talking to one of my pregnant patients the other day and she asked me a strange question. “How far into pregnancy is it legal to have an abortion?” I gulped silently and asked her why she was asking. Turns out, her cousin is newly pregnant and wanted to know. So I gave my patient the answer – abortion is legal up to the moment of birth, and that the reason partial birth abortions are done is so that these older babies won’t embarass the abortionist by surviving. She was astounded – she said (and I quote) “but that’s murder!”. I asked her to consider at what point in pregnancy it becomes murder? And I pointed to the pictures all around the exam room of babies in every stage of development from just after conception to just before birth.
I don’t think she had ever thought of it that way before.