Until I stumbled across “Tim Kaine and the Democrats’ Defense of Abortion,” I had never heard of something called Paste Magazine.
I’m guessing I may never read another story from the source, but Greg Phillips’ meandering post made me think about the stalking horse arguments that are such a staple of the pro-abortion rhetorical stable.
For example, back in the day—when Phillips was “much younger”—he was “staunchly anti-abortion.” Not anymore; his explanation is one-sentence long.
But then he tells us now that he’s a dad
I must admit that I’m back to being uncomfortable with abortion. I believe that life, or the potential for it, begins at conception. I’m not sure that I see a difference between this early life and it being merely “potential”, because won’t its journey to become a baby only be derailed if something goes wrong?
That’s the familiar pivot that signals that, having given the best argument for life, the remainder of the essay will never address what Phillips has just conceded, only bury it in a series of excuses, rationalizations, beside-the-point asides, and non-sequiturs.
Such as (1) because he was finally “privileged,”
A baby would not have limited my life choices.
Such as (2) what’s right for me isn’t for you and it’s none of my business anyway
I understand that even if a clump of cells is, for me, already a life, it does not have more rights than the mother. It is not only her mental and physical well being that are factors, but also what she considers to be the right choice for her, for any reason. As I will never walk in her shoes, I cannot judge. Her reproductive choices are none of my business, but I can stand up for her right to make those choices privately and safely.
(By the way, the baby almost always is a “clump of cells,” the better to dehumanize him or her and to make the decision to abort seem inconsequential.)
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Such as (3) the wonderfulness the speakers at the Democratic Convention who sought to “humanize” the decision to abort:
How tragic that in 2016, we still need to humanize women.
Of course the humanity of the unborn child is not even worth mentioning in a throwaway line. It all comes down to what NARAL’s Ilyse Hogue told the cheering audience about her abortion: “It was the wrong right time” to have a baby.
And finally, such as (4) you don’t have to be at ease with abortion:
With their choice of Tim Kaine, Democrats have demonstrated that you can support their position while being personally uncomfortable with the procedure. That’s what choice means.
Nope, not as long as you vote the right way, including co-sponsoring a bill to obliterate virtually all limitations on abortion, vouchsafe your undying support for Roe v. Wade, and pretend to still be in favor of the Hyde Amendment at the same time you affirm and support Hillary Clinton in her missionary zeal to terminate the Hyde Amendment which has saved well over 1 million people.
These people have to get some new stories.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.
