Ashli puts a nice smack-down on the latest meme about pro-lifers. That once a child is born we don’t give a damn about the child and it’s health or education. Someone recently posted this meme in a comment box on one of my posts and so it was timely for Ashli to post on this. She makes some excellent points as to asking where is the pro-abortion crowd is after a women has an abortion and then has physical or emotional problems?
The abortion supporter is only there to put an arm around a grieving mother… so they can reach around and clap a hand over her wailing mouth. "Shut up," the abortion supporter sneers. "Your voice is not wanted. You made your bed, now lie in it. It was your choice. YOUR choice!"
The same people who would want to send in grief counselors if the family pet was run over will totally deny that women and those involved in the abortion can possibly have any grief. Their tactic is deny, deny, deny. Recently we have had multiple stories and constant cable news coverage on Celebrex at four times the dosage possibly leading to increased risk of heart attacks. Yet Mifeprex used for a chemical abortion at the normal dosage is much more likely to cause death then Celebrex. Where is the concern for the life of the mother in this case by pro-abortion types?
It is no surprise that the meme used against those who are pro-life is increasingly used. They usually frame the debate in government provided healthcare and education. One of the problems in modern discourse is that if you do not agree with someone’s solution to a problem then you are automatically branded as not caring about the problem. For example if you don’t accept a junk science fact on the environment then you must be for dirty air and water. If you don’t believe that government provided health care is the best way to provide access to healthcare for everyone you must have disdain for the poor. We need to move the debate on both sides away from demonizing others about their concern about a problem and move the debate towards what is the more prudential answer to a problem.
17 comments
Jeff, I do think that some pro-life people are actually just anti-abortion, and they really care little for social services for children born in poverty. While I respect the conservative argument against government power and intervention, reasonable alternatives are often lacking in their proposals.
I think your suggestion to aim for answers instead of demonization is wise.
This is exactly on topic with my blog’s latest post. see:
Love is Messy
Best speech/sermon I heard this year was given at the Family Life Services Banquet.
http://www.women-helping-women.net/index.html
John Ensor http://johnensor.org/ spoke about the fact that love is messy.
He elaborated that when we take on one commitment out of love for another, then what proceeds from that is further commitment. Specifically when we encourage women to carry their babies to term then we have a continued responsibility for that woman and her baby. Or when we take in someone who doesn’t have friends or family, we incur an additional responsibility and we also have to deal with aspects of their personality or life that we perhaps would rather not.
He also said that every generation is called to respond to a crisis on the nature of humanity in a very practical way. Whether it be the Holocaust or slavery or now abortion. We cannot generally respond by stopping the crisis in toto but one person at a time. The underground railroad saved people one at a time. He related a story of a person who was helping to hide a Jewish family during the Holocaust who responded with love when one of those hidden took ill. He contracted the illness himself, on purpose and then when medicine was prescribed for himself, he shared it with the hidden one.
I often become reluctant to help someone because I can see all the additional needs they have and am now more sensitive to the fact that this is a rule of love. It is messy.
So, as we begin this new year, everyone lets get messy!!
That particular lie about pro-lifers isn’t the latest, it’s almost the oldest. I certainly remember it from at least thirty years ago. It isn’t the most outrageously bizarre and hallucinatory – the claim that we oppose abortion “because we think bad girls deserve what they get” definitely nicks the waffle in that department – but it is unquestionably a venerable chestnut of malignant misrepresentation. If we didn’t care about children after they were born we wouldn’t care about them before they were born. Where this argument breaks down is on the question of what constitutes caring about children. The pro-aborts can’t be allowed unilaterally to define the terms of the discussion by decreeing that “caring” means supporting intrusive big-government projects and expensive long-running failures, and that opposing any of these means “not caring”.
I’m sorry, Jeff, I yielded to a bad habit, and wrote a comment before I finished reading the post. Your last paragraph says everything I meant to say in my comment, which was therefore quite unnecessary.
One point: Mr. Miller and Ashli failed to answer the critique. Where is the support of the children postnatally? Commenting that pro-abortion supporters fail in their support of the grieving women who had an abortion does not answer the first critique.
Maybe Elinor answered it. She won’t support anything that will cost her tax dollars in a “failed government plan.” But still, even here asserting how “Yes, I am anti-abortion and I support children post-natally,” the next comment is “except if implemented by the government.” No positivist responsibilities are ever detailed at all. This is so typical of the anti-abortionists’ answer. The economic and policy implementation looks as if it could have been written by that king of charity, Grover Norquist. Usually shortly after commenting that an anti-abortion activist is “pro-child,” but opposed to “failed government programs like welfare, food stamps, etc.” they then make some comment relating government support of minority scholarships and community colleges promotion are an “anti-family agenda.”
Anti-abortionists have long been alientated from poverty and inner cities. They have aligned themselves and elevated politico-economic policy to the level of theology, such that tax refunds, anti-union positions, and government size reductions (except for implementing school voucher programs) have high moral imperative, only slightly outmatched by the gravity of abortion. The anti-abortion positions have always failed to answer the question positively: What will I do to help these individuals who do not have abortions?
Maybe anti-abortionists should just “man up” and say it: I’m not going to spend one penny to help these people, they should just help themselves out, and not get pregnant next time.
I think Daniel misses Jeff’s point that framing the debate in terms of government provided healthcare and education (as Daniel seems to do) is a false dilemma.
Making abortion illegal is necessarily a governmental act. Serving the poor is not.
I want a commitment to serving the poor stated. Period. Never done. Notice the comments are directly:
1) Anti-abortionists are criticized for failing to support the infants in their post-natal life.
2) To answer this, I would like to say that women who have abortions receive generous post-abortion grief and healing.
3) It’s ok to deny government support of the poor.
Now where is the direct indication of the support of the family who chose to have the children? Never indicated. Mr. Miller sidesteps the point.
If the anti-abortion crowd doesn’t want to support the families who are poor and have their infants, then I say, “man up” and say it. Say, “It ain’t my job.” Stop pretending that there is support, when none is detailed or offered.
My parish both has an office for Catholic Charities and directly supports the St. Vincent De Paul society. In our soup kitchen we support over 800 people on the weekends and many of us also volunteer at the Salvation Army kitchen across the street from our parish. If these efforts of Catholics and others provide more direct help for the poor and those temporalily in need then any government agency. I know that all the people in my parish volunteering their time and money are ardently pro-life and this consistent life ethic extends way beyond the event of being born. So we don’t have to “man-up” and say any nonscence about it not being our job when we see this a the core of being Christian.
“Usually shortly after commenting that an anti-abortion activist is “pro-child,” but opposed to “failed government programs like welfare, food stamps, etc.” they then make some comment relating government support of minority scholarships and community colleges promotion are an “anti-family agenda.”
I have noticed, surfing blogs and websites, that views on those published from the USA tend to come in one of two bundles: anti-abortion tends to come with more Acton-Institute-tending politico-economic views, whereas pro-abortion tends to come with accepting homosexual activity as a valid lifestyle and having hordes of social workers. Herr Conway should bear this in mind, and indeed everyone else. Will explain in more detail later/
Mr. Conway has apparently no experience of pro-life activists, or he would be familiar with the work of organizations like Catholic Charities, Birthright, the Salvation Army and others who work to assist families both before and after births. He has likewise obviously very little experience of analytical thought, or he would realize that sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting, “Pro-lifers don’t care!” convinces no-one but himself. As I stated, the pro-abortion side cannot be allowed to get away with asserting that the only way one can care about these children is by promoting government programs. If he is unwilling to acknowledge that there are other and more effective ways to help people than by making them perpetual pensioners of the State, then he is wasting his time.
Analytic thought dissected that no one answered the claim. Catholic Charities has been explicit in its comments about the quest to end government programs like food stamps and medicaid. They have said this would be catastrophic. They rely on government support for the poor, in order to do their work.
Which government failures are we talking about-medicaid, food stamps? Community colleges (receiving heavy fed support), college loans and grants? Which ones neeed to go? Which of these awful handout programs need to go, because, I see no one enjoying the welfare system too much. Only infrequently do I find anyone who wants to be receiving handouts that come with such scorn as heaped by Ms. Elinor.
Finally, I have some experience with pro-lifers locally. The experiences are mixed. Some groups, are very helpful, agreed. I had a pregnant woman without healthcare in my home in the early 1990’s who worked but without health insurance. Several proudly pro-life Ob’s would not see her for prenatal care. I investigated and found that they wouldn’t even take medicaid (which means not that the OB is performing charity, just not getting paid alot).
Pro-life does not mean pro-poor, or pro-charity. Many contributors to these blogs routinely espouse Calvinist ideas about wealth and charity. In fact, the pro-life movement itself made a distinct policy choice to end any concern for the poor officially as it moved from the “seamless garment.” Abandoning the seamless garment now leaves you vulnerable to anti-poor critique. Additionally, standard pro-life apologists have so divorced themselves from the problems of poverty, that they clearly have no personal experience or vocabulary for an approach to the concerns of the poor.
Ms. Elinor remains fairly incensed that her social justice credentials can be questioned. As long as the pro-life movement scorns the seamless garment approach, ditching it on the side on the road, they will justly be open to critique, and will be forced to answer this critique routinely. The price you paid for ditching “liberal” anti-poverty thinking.
Two errors Daniel makes are to equate skepticism about the effectiveness of government anti-poverty programs with indifference to poverty; and to imply that deep poverty is the only cause of abortion.
Again, opposition to legal abortion is necessarily a public act. Charitable aid for the poor is not. Demanding that anyone opposed to legal abortion publicize his charitable acts is, in my judgment, sufficiently ill-mannered as to call into question the motivation of the one making the demand.
Is this meant to be a discussion about the US pro-life movement? Or the pro-life movement in general? And is it about what actually happens or about philosophies? (not used derogatively)
I keep getting the impression that this man and I are involved in two different conversations. He seems to think that the argument still hinges on whether or not pro-life individuals advocate increases in AFDC, which it doesn’t. There’s no point wasting any further effort trying to get through on this matter, and I won’t. He also appears to think that I’m distressed by his disapproval, which is a forlorn hope if ever there was one. In the first place, it isn’t my habit to become agitated over the perverse ill-will of complete strangers, especially those whose conversation gives so little reason to suppose that their intellectual powers are above the average. For this reason I haven’t troubled to defend myself against his silly slurs by detailing my own personal activities in the pro-life cause, and I don’t propose to do so now. In the second place, it’s ridiculous to assume that any pro-life person is interested in the moral judgments of a pro-abortion person. Anyone who thinks it right that one person, totally unable to defend himself against violent aggression, should be murdered at the whim of another, is demonstrably of a moral character so vitiated as to be incapable of forming a just assessment of anyone else’s character.
What’s AFDC? Mmm, and I do value the opinion of some people who happen not to be against abortion. In case Herr Conway is still reading, I was going to mention a pro-life organisation who tok advantage of a generous maternity leave law by employing women whose pregnancy was going to cause financial disaster (I think they paid them to make rosaries): the state then paid them two-thirds of their previous wage for the next six months or so. I think a lot of pro-life work in certain countries is helping women (and their families) work out what help they can get from the state. The secondary school next to mine had a creche, so that girls with babies and no way of arranging child care could finish school. Two girls from my class left to go there when they got pregnant. At the same time my own Legion of Mary praesidium and SVdP have helped people individually. It seems to me that the welfare state has grown a bit much in many countries. On the other hand, I am not sure that the US is one of them, nor that even in those that one should campaign for a reduction in public spending on welfare until one can be sure there is a “private” alternative in place.
On another note, there was a report in the British press some years ago that girls from poor areas were less likely to have abortions than girls from well-off families. You know what the reaction was? An appeal to help educate these poor (in the other sense) girls who are being deprived of their reproductive rights through lack of education and access to proper reproductive health care.
Nice.
AFDC is Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or welfare.
The question of assistance to the poor is important to pastoral treatment of women in difficult pregnancies. It has absolutely no bearing on the objective evil of murder. The way this argument usually goes around is that the pro-abortion side accuses pro-lifers, generally on no grounds whatsoever, of failing to help women after they’ve decided to carry to term. Our side, aware of the falseness of the charge, hastens to defend itself by explaining how much we do, bypassing the pro-aborts’ clear implication, that opposition to abortion is unjustified unless the pro-life side commits to supporting a liberal agenda of government programs. The answer to this accusation should be, first, that killing babies is wrong any way you look at it. After that it’s fine to describe the work pro-life individuals and groups do to assist women and children after birth. It’s most important, however, to avoid giving any countenance to the suggestion that efforts to stop abortion depend for their justice on anything but the intrinsic evil of abortion. Charity is excellent and necessary, but abortion is WRONG, independent of any other consideration.
I take it Daniel’s argument is that pro-lifers don’t care about life after its born, therefore the pro-life position on abortion is wrong? That’s utterly silly. Either abortion is wrong or it is not. Does he also believe theft is wrong only if you agree that victims need to be paid from government coffers for their losses? Whether the consequences of a particular act can be effectively remedied or lessened doesn’t change the nature of an intrinsically wrong act.
Of course, abortionists don’t even care about life before it is born, much less after. And if Daniel is so concerned about not being able to care for all the extra children had they lived, why not go the next logical step and line the poor up and shoot them? Abortion as a solution to poverty is no different than just killing the poor.