Some 150 southwestern Utah residents gathered for a water symposium Saturday April 12th – calling for a referendum on a proposed water pipeline for a growing area that they say will endanger water resources and contribute to urban sprawl.
Hear this story
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Being Pro-Abortion
Cross-posted to my Newsvine page.
I’m about to step on the third rail….abortion.
This issue is still so touchy that not even Hollywood’s liberal elite can really say where they stand. Two recent movies that dealt with unplanned pregnancies, Juno, and Knocked Up, didn’t even really allow for the possibility of abortion.
So, I’m going to say it. I’m not pro-choice. I’m pro-abortion.
I’m not pro-abortion in the sense that I want women to have abortions. I want abortion to be available to women who want or need it.
There was a campaign started a while back that was unapologetic about abortion. I think the campaign died, because it was too bold. The campaign had women where T-shirts that simply read, “ I had an abortion.” This was the face of evil for the right in this country. Ordinary women unapolegitcally proclaiming that they had an abortion. I also think that women demurred from this campaign, because, if they had an abortion, I think that they thought it was now one’s business if they had and they would have been right.
I’m pro-abortion because the other side’s arguments are simply wrong. The other side says that abortion is a sign of decadent and cruel civilization. I hate to trot out this old horse, but Nazi Germany was very much anti-abortion. So was Nicolae Ceauşescu’s Romania. I would rather live in a United States that allows abortion than either of these two regimes.
The possibility of abortion being recriminalized is a landmine. Let’s suppose that we recriminalize abortion. With what crime should women who have had an abortion becharged? Murder? In the First or Second Degree? Manslaughter? If women are not to be held legally accountable for having an abortion, then abortion opponents are telling us that as far as this issue goes, women are legally incompetent. If they want women to beheld culpable in abortions we better be prepared for the prison population of the United States to go up over 1 % of the population.
A new book, tries to remake the case that embryos are human beings. Here’s a selection from Embryo: A Defense of Human Life by Robert P. George and ChristopherTollefsen:
Human embryos are not...some other type of animal organism, like a dog or cat. Neither are they a part of an organism, like a heart, a kidney, or a skin cell. Nor again are they a disorganized aggregate, a mere clump of cells awaiting some magical transformation. Rather, a human embryo is a whole living member of the species Homo sapiens in the earliest stage of his or her natural development (p. 3).
This is a classic straw man argument. It makes a claim that is not made by the opposition Say that it is, and then shoots it down. I would never say that a human fetus does not become a human being anymore than I would say that an acorn doesn’t become. Here’s where I part logical ways from George and Tollefson: the fetus isn’t a human, yet. It can have no existence beyond its host/mother. When it can, then we can start talking about it being a human being. Not before. The host/mother has to be able to decide what to do with it.
I have a feeling Roe v. Wade will become what is known as a super-precedent. I really don’t think it will ever be struck down. Legal abortion is here to stay. While it remains a public issue, let those of us who favor keeping this choice with women call ourselves what we are. We are pro-abortion.
I’m about to step on the third rail….abortion.
This issue is still so touchy that not even Hollywood’s liberal elite can really say where they stand. Two recent movies that dealt with unplanned pregnancies, Juno, and Knocked Up, didn’t even really allow for the possibility of abortion.
So, I’m going to say it. I’m not pro-choice. I’m pro-abortion.
I’m not pro-abortion in the sense that I want women to have abortions. I want abortion to be available to women who want or need it.
There was a campaign started a while back that was unapologetic about abortion. I think the campaign died, because it was too bold. The campaign had women where T-shirts that simply read, “ I had an abortion.” This was the face of evil for the right in this country. Ordinary women unapolegitcally proclaiming that they had an abortion. I also think that women demurred from this campaign, because, if they had an abortion, I think that they thought it was now one’s business if they had and they would have been right.
I’m pro-abortion because the other side’s arguments are simply wrong. The other side says that abortion is a sign of decadent and cruel civilization. I hate to trot out this old horse, but Nazi Germany was very much anti-abortion. So was Nicolae Ceauşescu’s Romania. I would rather live in a United States that allows abortion than either of these two regimes.
The possibility of abortion being recriminalized is a landmine. Let’s suppose that we recriminalize abortion. With what crime should women who have had an abortion becharged? Murder? In the First or Second Degree? Manslaughter? If women are not to be held legally accountable for having an abortion, then abortion opponents are telling us that as far as this issue goes, women are legally incompetent. If they want women to beheld culpable in abortions we better be prepared for the prison population of the United States to go up over 1 % of the population.
A new book, tries to remake the case that embryos are human beings. Here’s a selection from Embryo: A Defense of Human Life by Robert P. George and ChristopherTollefsen:
Human embryos are not...some other type of animal organism, like a dog or cat. Neither are they a part of an organism, like a heart, a kidney, or a skin cell. Nor again are they a disorganized aggregate, a mere clump of cells awaiting some magical transformation. Rather, a human embryo is a whole living member of the species Homo sapiens in the earliest stage of his or her natural development (p. 3).
This is a classic straw man argument. It makes a claim that is not made by the opposition Say that it is, and then shoots it down. I would never say that a human fetus does not become a human being anymore than I would say that an acorn doesn’t become. Here’s where I part logical ways from George and Tollefson: the fetus isn’t a human, yet. It can have no existence beyond its host/mother. When it can, then we can start talking about it being a human being. Not before. The host/mother has to be able to decide what to do with it.
I have a feeling Roe v. Wade will become what is known as a super-precedent. I really don’t think it will ever be struck down. Legal abortion is here to stay. While it remains a public issue, let those of us who favor keeping this choice with women call ourselves what we are. We are pro-abortion.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Coal and Controversy In Utah.
Is It A Guarantee Of Plentiful Energy Or A Health Hazard Waiting To Happen? Coal Continues To Cause Controversy In The American Southwest.
From The Salt Lake Weekly
From The Salt Lake Weekly
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