Judie Brown - A Philosophical Split, or Absence of Logic?

Judie Brown, President of the American Life League, and guest speaker at a recent fundraising dinner, hits it out of the park when she writes about why Personhood is the only sensible position for any pro-life group.

This article is reprinted from Judie's blog at the ALL website.


Philosophical Split, Or Absence of Logic?

A couple of days ago a member of the leadership team from Colorado for Equal Rights sent me a link to the NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado home page where I found something remarkable.

You see the pro-abortion forces in Colorado are up in arms, literally, over the personhood effort in the state, and have made the statement: "Changing Colorado’s constitution in such an extreme way could have far-reaching consequences beyond banning abortion, including making it illegal to use of the most effective forms of birth control, restricting in-vitro fertilization, and curbing embryonic stem cell research."

Well, I have to ask, what is so extreme about being consistent in the pro-life struggle to protect the personhood of the human being from the time his life begins, regardless of the manner in which that life begins? Would the pro-aborts like it better if pro-lifers contradicted their principles by arguing that they "take no position on contraception," or "will not oppose in vitro fertilization" or "support exceptions in cases of rape, incest and life of the mother?"

Because if they would be less offended by such inconsistent illogical politically correct positions they need only focus attention on South Dakota or some other legislative effort where consistency is lacking altogether. For as one recent news report stated: "The Wall Street Journal on Monday examined the 'philosophical split' among antiabortion groups over five state ballot initiatives, with some groups supporting only measures that seek to ban abortion, while others are supporting attempts to 'chip away' at abortion rights through initiatives aimed at restricting access or limiting certain procedures."

If you are familiar with this blog you already know where I stand on the "split" but perhaps you have not quite gotten your arms around the reasons why. After all, you might be thinking, "Judie Brown is simply one of those 'all or nothing' pro-lifers who doesn’t get it." Well, my friend, I do get it and that is why I abhor the argument that we can chip away at abortion rights in America in 2008.

Why? Let’s start with 35 years ago when the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court decisions decriminalizing abortion during all nine months of pregnancy. From that moment to this, the split in the pro-life movement has widened as many have inconsistently chosen to add on an exception here and an exception there until, as we all know, we have reached a point where we cannot even outlaw infanticide – partial birth abortion – unless we support a life of the mother exception in the legislation.

What do these exceptions mean to the future of pro-life political efforts to restore personhood to the preborn child?

To put it succinctly, it means that we, at least some of us, are so good at undermining the personhood principle by "chipping away" at the fringes of abortion-murder that we have become extraordinarily efficient at denying that there is anything wrong with this "strategy." It is obvious that many of us simply do not want to do the difficult thing - the right thing - and be consistent in our arguments.

My view is that until we as a pro-life movement decide, from one end of the movement to the other, that we are dedicated to personhood and will oppose abortive birth control, in vitro fertilization and surgical abortion, we are going to spin our wheels. We are going to continue to cut down a small tree here and tinier one there, while thousands of babies continue to die every single day.

Personhood means defending every single human being without excluding a single one; anything less, commonly known as chipping away, is equivalent to opposing ourselves by claiming we are being realistic!

Come on, give me a break! NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado gets it! Why can’t some pro-lifers?

Keyes On Point Again

This week, Dr. Alan Keyes had another on-point column, pointing out the curious inability of the compromised pro-life community to make coherent refutations of the cogent arguments put forward by him, Judie Brown, Brian Rohrbough (and Colorado Right to Life), and many other prominent uncompromised pro-life leaders against both incrementalism and the fatally flawed Partial Birth Abortion ruling.

He also points to an article I'd forgotten about, by Judie Brown of the American Life League.

Both of these columns are better than Janet Folger's WorldNetDaily column from yesterday which minimizes a serious philosophical divide, dismissing it as bickering. It's more than just talk & backtalk -- it's an issue that's very important to resolve, and we'd better do so to be effective. The way we're going isn't working, and we'd better commit to a real strategy, real soon!

Here's the link to Dr. Keyes' "Bad Fruit" : http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/keyes/070624

And here's a teaser:

Bad fruit
Rational debate of Carhart called for

Alan Keyes
June 24, 2007

I learned with sadness and chagrin that at the recent convention of National Right to Life, the organization's leadership decided to purge the Colorado Chapter because the chapter took to task the pro-life leaders who applauded Justice Kennedy's reasoning in Gonzales v. Carhart — the recent Supreme Court decision on partial birth abortion. (For my analysis of this decision, please see the article "Gardeners of Evil" at RenewAmerica.us.)

Unfortunately, this news was not my first inkling of the internecine conflict the decision brought to light within the ranks of the pro-life movement. Judie Brown has been one of the critics of the decision's wicked entrenchment of the unconstitutional Roe/Casey jurisprudence. When RenewAmerica published her response to those who have taken such criticisms as personal attacks against themselves, one of the organizations coming in for criticism withheld its support from a Christian citizen mobilization effort I am involved with.

Need for rational discussion

I am of course not surprised or dismayed that there should be disagreement among pro-lifers. I have been deeply disappointed, however, that instead of answering the lucid arguments being made by people like Judie Brown and myself, the Gonzales v. Carhart cheering section has chosen petty maneuvers and power plays aimed at damaging or silencing their critics.

This is the standard response of those who lack the ability to defend their position with good logic and clear arguments. We have suffered this kind of response for years from the proponents of abortion, from their claque in the liberal media and their tools in the political arena. But the rational moral strength of our position has placed pro-lifers beyond the temptation to stoop to such tactics — until now.

To read the rest of the article : http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/keyes/070624

Bob

Pruning the Abortion Weed

I was first drawn to question what's going on with the Partial Birth Abortion Ban when I saw Dr. Alan Keyes speak (speak, by the way, is understating what he does -- he's an eloquent, rapturous speaker!) at a pro-life event put on by Colorado Right to Life, memorializing the 40th anniversary of the 1st pro-abortion law in the country (signed in Colorado in 1967).

I received my copy of the DVD from that event (ordered through Colorado Right to Life, which is linked to the right of this article) just a few days ago, which prompted me to start this blog. The DVD is great -- has speeches by all the speakers, which were some of the best pro-life messages I'd ever heard. The whole event was really inspirational, and I left determined that I would do more to help the movement. I have a God-given gift for writing, and I'm hoping to use that as my first tool (hence, the blog!).

Keyes had hardly started to talk when he verbally assailed (assaulted -- punctured, spindled, etc.) the Supreme Court for upholding the Partial Birth Abortion Ban (the federal version -- there are various versions of PBA bans, mostly at the state level, and some are better than others).

Instantly, I had a "say what?" moment. Why would anyone on the pro-life side not want partial birth abortion banned? But at Keyes' speed, it didn't take more than a few seconds for him to allay my questions.

He went on about how the Supreme Court's ruling was evil. How it was really a pro-abortion ruling, which paid homage to Roe v. Wade and all that. He explained in exquisite detail, and it was really eye-opening for me. What hit me hardest was it was so different from what I'd heard for many years from Republicans and recently from national officeholders and even from pro-life leaders! It was like night and day -- someone had the truth, and someone was either mistaken or lying. And, from the depth of information available from Keyes and Colorado Right to Life at this event, it was clear who had the facts on their side.

I don't have time to go on about this right now (I may later), but I want to direct you to Keyes' column on the subject, published just a few days after Colorado Right to Life's "Forty Years in the Wilderness: Coming Back to Life" event.

One of the key points Keyes makes is that these pro-life "regulations" many pro-life groups (and lots of Republicans) love to talk about are really not achieving what they're supposed to. They don't save babies (the PBA Ban, remarkably, does not save one baby's life!), and they actually just attack the abortion industry around the edges. They feed on the "weakest" points of the pro-abortion establishment, not at its heart. And because these regulations eat away only at the edges, they inadvertantly strengthen the "weed" of abortion because they avoid harming the root, which they leave intact and in place.

But even so, this strategy of incrementalist regulation misses the whole point. I play games, and in many role playing games they have "critical hits" -- if you make just the right roll, or score, then something devastating happens to your enemy. And the abortion industry is like a dragon -- it's fearsome, awesome, kills lots of people, and seems impossible to stop. But every dragon has a key vulnerability. That key point -- that "critical hit" waiting to happen -- is Personhood.

Like I said, I'll get to that later, once I can formulate my thoughts. But pro-lifers have to concentrate on establishing Personhood for persons of ALL ages, big, little, strong or frail.

Here's Keyes' take on it:

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/keyes/070428

And please bookmark this site, if you care about the fight for life for all. Come back and see as this develops.

Thanks!

Bob Kyffin