There’s a story breaking today in Kansas that abortion doctor George Tiller was shot and killed outside his church this morning. Stacy McCain is the go-to guy for updates and blogospheric reactions on the story as it continues to develop.
My opinion on this is, unfortunately, complicated. George Tiller was, to my thinking, a monster who willfully killed babies whose only “crime” is that they didn’t make it all the way out of the womb before he got hold of them. I can not see late-term or partial-birth abortions (both of which Tiller performed, and fought very hard to keep performing) as anything but infanticide. He was a reprehensible human being whose arrogance at coming within 100 feet of a house of worship is staggering.
However, that does not excuse his killer. The person who shot Tiller is a cold-blooded murderer and is every bit as monstrous a killer as Tiller himself. I don’t care how the killer rationalized his killing (I’m using the generic “him” here). He had no right to take Tiller’s life. He assumed the power of judgment that didn’t belong to him and he should pay for that very dearly. It wouldn’t sadden me at all if he were given the death sentence (assuming they have that in Missouri Kansas). I am very sorry for Tiller’s family and friends, who have lost someone they loved.
The other part of my thinking bears directly on what Stacy had to say about it.
One reason I so despise such criminal idiocy is that, as a student of history, I cannot think of a single instance in which assassination has produced anything good, no matter how evil or misguided the victim, nor how well-intentioned or malevolent the assassin.
From Brutus and the other republican Senators who slew Julius Caesar to Charlotte Corday, from John Wilkes Booth to Gavrilo Princip, and so onto Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray, assassination seems inevitably to work against the purposes of its practitioners.
Those who slew Caesar did not save the Roman republic. Marat’s death only incited the Jacobins to greater terror. Booth’s pistol conjured up a spirit of vengeance against the South more terrible than war itself. Assassination is an act of nihilism. Whatever the motive of the crime, the horror it evokes always inspires a draconian response, and involves other consequences never intended by the criminal.
Tiller’s murder is going to be a very bad thing for the pro-life movement. He has undone years of patient, reasonable work. Tiller’s murderer is responsible now for the thousands of abortions that will be committed because of how far his actions today set back the pro-life movement. As Stacy said, assassinations spin off unintended consequences that never work in the favor of the assassin’s cause.
You will see some of those consequences almost immediately. I would be very surprised to find any pro-life group cheering Tiller’s death with the expected and rather boring example of Randall Terry. In fact, I expect the condemnations of the killer to be unequivocal. However, that won’t stop the pro-abortion left from tying every pro-life person in America to Tiller’s murder whether they find evidence of approval or not.
As a matter of fact, they won’t even bother to look. They’ll just ignore the condemnations from among the pro-lifers and let the ignorant, poisonous bile fly. Their reactions are dishonest, unfair, and purposefully ignorant. But that’s who they are. I feel very sorry indeed for the lives that will be damaged by the actions of this one person.
UPDATE: More news updates here.
Tags: Abortion
Generally, committed “progressives” sincerely believe their ideology, at it core, is pure; and become indignant when the entire movement is tainted by the actions of a few extremists. Conservatives do the same.
Progressives claim that conservative extremists perform more atrocities than they and vice versa. I suppose the idea is that if my side does fewer evil things per capita that would somehow prove my dogma to be the preferred view. But frankly, what would this really prove? I recently heard Wanda Sykes say that she hoped Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys failed after jokingly saying that Rush was probably one of the 9/11 terrorists but missed his flight because of being strung out on prescription drugs. “Too much” she quipped…“but you’re laughing on the inside.” Yes, there is catharsis in vilifying the opposition as objects of scorn rather than human beings and then laying low your caricature. Liberals do it and so do conservatives. I have heard many liberals spew out hate speech, call it a joke and somehow feel justified because, after all, the ones they excoriate and dehumanize have views not compatible with a diverse society. But conservatives forget their Christian roots. For example, some of us conservatives are “laughing on the inside” about the death of Tiller, but I am fighting it.
There is a proverb that goes like so:
“Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; lest the LORD see it, and it displease Him, and He turn away His wrath from him. Proverbs 24:17,18.
Do not rejoice when your enemy falls. Get that stupid, lopsided grin off your face. Tiller was a human being with an eternal soul who will experience eternal consequences for what he did. That is a terrible reality that should shake us all as we ponder our own appointment with God.
In the war of words and ideals, fight for your position like good Christian soldiers, yet give honor and respect and love even where you do not think it is warranted. By the way, if anybody poisons Rush Limbaugh should we indict Wanda Sykes?
No, they don’t do it for fun. They do it for any number of reasons. The reasons are entirely irrelevant, though.
And I may substitute my judgment because I am a rational human being capable of doing so. I’m sure you realize that we ask thousands of people to do that very thing every day. We call them jurists.
You are correct that the issue is power, but it’s not the power you think. See, women do indeed have a choice. they choose whether to have sex and what level of protection against pregnancy to employ. After that, to my thinking, they are choosing to kill another person who has no say in the matter.
As for the health care, slur, well, that was well beneath you. You’re losing your dignified tone, it seems.
Jesper it is not my opinion that a life is being taken. It is solid fact. Like I said before it is only opinion that, that life is not yet valuable. Things that lack life do not grow and develop nor do they have a complete set of DNA. I could keep going on the science of this but I don’t think your interested in the facts. It is your opinion and so many others that have decided that that the mothers life and body and that of the unborn are not equal. In history there have been way to many lives lost based on the belief that we could define the value of a life. Do you not remember that it was legal to own another person in this country based on their skin color. You could pretty much do what you wanted with them like they were animals. Somehow that made complete sence to many people then even though it would never be politicaly correct or legal to do so now. A life is a life and we are in danger when we don’t stand on that firmly. Did you know that many pro-abortionists, although rare I admit but are people of possible influence, believe in infacide up to a certain point. You may think it not possible but that is the direction we are going in. Near birth abortion is sick. There is no medical reason to ever perform this EVER. The woman has to go through labor to have it done. It’s outragous!! What danger could she be in if she goes through the labor anyway? The baby is born feet first until just before the head. A scissor like instrument is then used to puncture the back of the baby’s head and then the brain is suctioned out. Do you think that innocent baby did not feel being stabbed in the back of the head? I assure you they do. As far as the woman go (leaving out those raped) the mass majority have willingly had sex. If people want to have the right to do what they want, when they want, with who ever they want, they need to take responisbility. I don’t care if they have used ever possible means of protection and it still happened. If you don’t want a baby don’t have sex. Hello!!! For the woman who have been raped and pregnancy has resulted, both baby and mother should be treated as innocent victoms. People get very defensive when I say that but I have known people who came from their mothers being raped. It would be very insulting to say that because of something they did not do that they are disposable. Our lives have all begun at conception. Your LIFE began at conception. you are either alive, or dead. You sure weren’t dead. Is a 2 year old less valuable than a ten year old? Why do we think we can put a time-line on ones life only when their in the womb. It makes no sence!!! If you want to go by the facts good, if you want to go by your opinion then you are a supporter the ultamate gamble.
Jesper are you serious power and control over woman? It is because we have the freedom to choose that we are in that position. I will get a little personal here. I am a Christian but my stand can be shown without my beliefs as I have not brought it up until now. I cpmpletely believe in waiting until marraige. Unfortunatly that was not the case for me. I got pregnant while I was in college. I got married shortly after the birth of my precious son. I have only ever been with my husband but that was not so for my husband. I found out later that I had physical consequenses to the choice I had made. It was very hard to accept and though I am healthy I stand the chance for potental problems for the rest of my life. This is not what freedom is. I feel like I am in bondage to this thing. If I had waited and my husband had waited there would have been freedom. There is no chance of these issues if you don’t have sex. Our bodies are rejecting this lifestyle!! We over eat- we get fat, we smoke- we could die of many types of cancer, you drink to much you can have medical problems and even die. We are free to do all of these things but that doesn’t mean we are going to live with freedom. We become prisoners of food and addictive substances. Likewise with sex. If everyone waited until marriage would STD’s exist? I know that is not likely for people to wait but it is still fact. This is not about control it’s about having common sence and making good desicions and if we make bad ones taking responsibility for those choices. When it comes to creating lives we need to be very very careful!! We have taken freedom to far by leaving out responsibility.
The whole idea of personhood is crap. Complete crap. It is a theory with only opinion as evidence and follows a deffinition that could effect even babies outside of the womb and those who are handicap! It is outrageous that it can be treated as fact and be used as legitimate cause for abortion. Are we ever going to learn? History is being repeated over and over and over again. LIFE is LIFE and it seems we would rather follow in the footsteps of Hitler.
And yet, jan, it is the theory by which slaves were made free in this country. Personhood is the only issue that matters.
The truth is…
…you didn’t read my post.
Here’s your homework: Read my entire post, see where you have mischaracterized me, then give me the apology I deserve.
Or let it be known that you attack bloggers by linking to their posts without fully reading them, and placing words in their mouth that they haven’t said.
Intellectual honesty or wingnut hackery, the choice is yours.
Nice fake choice. I did read your post. Twice. You’re wrong, as you were in your original post. You jumped to a conclusion (the very thing you say I did, interestingly enough) that turned out to be incorrect. I can’t help it if the accusation stings. Perhaps if you had take a bit more time and read your way around a bit more, you might have foung out that the right’s house is pretty damned clean on this.
Cleaner, at least, than the left’s when it comes to the anti-war crowd.
Dignity, schmignity! Please answer the question Jimmie: Do you support universal health care or not? Because if you don’t, I can’t take your opposition to abortion seriously. And saying that right-wingers who will deny childen access to health care — for whatever reason — don’t care about the lives of children is not a slur. It’s a fact.
Once again Jan, I respect your religiously based beliefs. But that’s all they are: beliefs. And while you may chose to believe anything you want, you have no right to impose those beliefs on others. As far as I’m concerned, there is no God and the Bible is a work of literature. It contains much wisdom for sure, but nothing you’d want to base policy on. Also, to my way of thinking, a fetus is a lump of biological tissue. If a woman isn’t free to control and decide over her own body we don’t live in a free society anymore. As it happens, my own mother gave up two children for adoption because she couldn’t afford to keep them and I respect her for making that difficult decision. But I also think that she woulh have been equally justified in chosing abortion instead.
For the record Mike, I completely agree with you on this point. We all need to make a good faith effert when dealing with these difficult issues. And being a bit of a smart-ass myself, I can testify to the fact, that sincerity and thoughtfulness don’t always come easy. No matter which political side you’re coming from.
Holy tangent, Jesper! You do know how to throw up strawmen, don’t you?
Supporting universal health care, or not, has nothing to do with “denying children access to health care” no matter what proponents of socializing our economy say.
As I said, the debate for me comes down to the issue of personhood. Either an unborn human being is a person deserving of rights or it is property. Right now, the prevailing view is for the latter. That view is changing.
So Jesper you just force your opinion on unborn. I get it. I am not forcing anything except stating facts. It is your choice to believe in God or not. I would never try to force that ever. Nor would I try to convince anyone. Jesus never did that so why would I. You believe or you don’t. I usually leave my faith out of arguments like these and I do believe the true evidence speaks for itself without bringing up faith. As for just a lump of biological tissue I think you need to get out of 1973. (when abortion was legalized) Not even doctors who perform abortions would rightfully label it as such now. We know far to much medically to call it a bunch of tissue! You have no idea what you are saying. It is a FACT that it is a human being and that it is living!!! If you want to believe that it is less valuable I can’t change that and I don’t see the point in trying.
tas has a point, Jimmie–the actual wording you used with your link was “they won’t even bother to look”; whereas in fact, tas did look, before he dismissed the condemnation as insufficient.
So here we have left and right, using condemnation on one hand, and tolerance on the other, yet both groups still have extremists who quote the party talking points as justification for their actions. And arguing with each other about it–’if your culture were more tolerant, like ours, there would not be extremists attacking us’ — ‘if you took a harder line against violence, the way we do, then there would not be extremists attacking _us_.’ And the more you ramp up the rhetoric, the more extremists there seem to be…irony, anyone?
Personhood is not even in most dictonaries and the term was never used in ending slavery in this country. In fact the only place I found a dictionary definition for it it stated ” the state of being human” which actually supports my claims. That is not however the definition pro-abortionists use. I understand what you are saying and ultimatly you are right in what you say. I should have a been a little more clear. Pro-abortionist have made a list of things they believe must be in place for a person to have reached personhood. I think they have to do this bacause they can no longer say that the unborn is not living human being so they had to come up with some other way of justifying their argument. Thank you for that correction.
I can say he was technically correct (which, as we learned from Futurama, is the best kind of correct) but I have a hard time considering a couple perfunctory links as looking when just a few minutes on memeorandum revealed a wealth of ringing condemnation to me. The problem I had with tas’ post is that he made it seem as if the right was split on the matter because he didn’t really look.
Truth is, and I’ve said this before around here, we will always have extremists. The goal of any ideological movement is to keep the extremists on the fringes as much as possible. When it comes to abortion, I believe the right has done that. The pro-life movement, with the exception of Randall Terry, is loudly and forcefully non-violent. The extremists live on the edges of the debate. The left has not at all done that with the anti-war movement. Michael Moore, an open advocate of violence, had a seat of honor among the Democrats. There are plenty of others.
I’m tired of the hypocrisy from the left. I think conservatives have taken it for far too long. My perception is that tas’ post was disingenuous and I haven’t seen anything from him to suggest otherwise.
No, the term was never used, but the concept was. Whatever you call it, the “person or property” argument is where we really need to be.
jimmie, it’s been a privilege reading through your blog.
i can’t quite understand your point here, though. you believe that late-term fetuses are fully human, right? there are so few doctors willing to abort them; george tiller’s death has certainly spared many lives.
i see your point that the murder has set the pro-life cause back, but aren’t you sympathetic to the man who took it upon himself to kill the man responsible for ‘america’s ongoing holocaust of the unborn?’ he was short-sighted, maybe, but don’t you think his heart was in the right place? i am sure the constitution says something about armed rebellion against unjust, tyrranical laws somewhere…
Adam, the humanity of the unborn is not a matter of belief, but science. They are humans. I believe that “late-term fetuses” are people, as is every other fetus.
And no, I’m not sympathetic toward him in the least. I was quite clear about that in my blog post, yes?
And thank you for the complement. I’ve enjoyed having you here, though we disagree. I hope you come back.
i imagine i’ll be around for a while. where i’m from, there are so people with views like yours; i honestly feel lucky to explore them.
you did make it clear that you aren’t sympathetic towards the murderer. i’m wondering why. it seems incommensurate with the idea that george tiller was himself a prolific, intractable murderer. if someone were marching around my neighborhood killing people, and the force of law refused to stop him, i think it would be an act of compassion to his thousands of potential, future victims to end his spree by any degree of force necessary. it would be negligent and dangerous to wait for the law to side with justice.
what is the second amendment for, if not the defense of the defenseless?
Don’t worry about exploring them. Just get to know them and let them get to you know. You’d be surprised what you can learn without trying (and how much of you will rub off on them!).
As I see it, the personhood of the unborn isn’t a certainty. I believe it is so, but I also understand my belief is entirely subjective. There is no way to prove personhood. Abortion is similar, in a lot of ways, to slavery, but different in that you can’t just point to an unborn and say “How can you say that’s not a person?” like you could with a slave in the 1860s and have that be a compelling argument.
I accept that enough of my fellow Americans believe the unborn are not people to keep the laws the way they are. I don’t like that it is so, but that’s how it works in a civilized society. Scott Roemer took power that didn’t belong to him. We can’t allow that to happen. If we do, our society crumbles and neither of us want that.
You may be interested in a post I’m going to write a little later. Another blogger wrote a very smart and introspective post on the personhood issue and I’m going to share it. I think you’ll find food for thought in it.
“I don’t see the point in trying”.
You just took the words right out of my mouth Jan.
There really isn’t much to be gained by arguing with people so convinced of their own divinely inspired righteousness, they can’t even consider the possibility of differing opinions.
That being the case, I shall hereby excuse myself from this blog and take my heretical views elsewhere.
I believe I have made my point here.
And next time a right-wing enforcer decides to overthrow the rule of law through violent terrorism, you will not be able to throw up your hands in mock horror while protesting your disbelief that relentless demonizing and incendiary hate speech could possibly have such deadly consequences.
You were warned; you just didn’t care.
Bye now.
i won’t dissect that response; it’s too muggy here, and i’m in too tender a mood.
i hope the post you’re working on resolves whether you think the ‘personhood’ of the unborn is a matter of consensus, or whether it’s an immutable, scientific truth. as i see it, you are stuck between siding with a murderer and acknowledging the consensual, relativistic nature of morality. i also hope you expand on your comparison of abortion to slavery. an analogy that controversial deserves more than a single sentence.
Of course personhood depends on consensus. That’s how it worked with slavery. Slaves weren’t people. They were property. It was that way until the consensus changed enough to change the law to grant them personhood.
If personhood were dependent solely on science, the unborn would be persons already. Like I said, science defines when a human is a human pretty clearly.
And don’t mistake morality for civil law. There is a difference.
I think this might be it for me so I will try to make it brief.. This is to Adam : I can see the point that your making but the fact is that as much as I hate the act of abortion killing that doctor did not stop anything. As long as it is legal there will be another doctor in his place. It did not solve or stop abortions from happening. If he really wanted to save lives he would not have done it in a way that could jeopardize the work of pro-lifers.
jan, there are not many — i’m reluctant to say not any, though i think that’s the case — doctors in the u.s. who are willing to perform abortions on fetuses as fully-formed as those that were george tiller’s specialty. there are other abortion doctors, of course, but late-term abortions will be harder to obtain for a substantial length of time as a result of this murder.
killing george tiller may not stop abortions, but it will make a world of difference to those fetuses that will be brought to term in his absence. usually, defending the defenseless is considered brave, regardless of whether it accords with national policy; why is this case different?
jimmie:
‘If personhood were dependent solely on science, the unborn would be persons already. Like I said, science defines when a human is a human pretty clearly.’
you are shooting yourself in the foot, jimmie. if science defines when a human is a human so clearly — and if morality has any sort of relationship with science — then popular consensus is out of line with objective truth, and our civil laws are allowing the bloodiest massacre in our country’s history to continue to rage, unchecked and unpunished.
after so many unsuccessful years of trying to stop abortion through legal channels, assassinating george tiller seems like this battle’s natural escalation, no? after all, the millions of babies that are legally murdered in america must be defended by any means necessary, right? how many babies die every second we waste in fruitless legislation?
sorry — i guess all those questions sound rhetorical. i would like to hear whether you agree with my reasoning, jimmie.
so, eagerly awaiting your response.
Adam, you’re right. That was an unsupported appeal to authority. Science does not define when a human is a human clearly–in fact, science doesn’t define it at all. If you have a complete definition in mind already, you don’t need science to figure out whether a particular thing is human or not, and if your definition isn’t complete, then science isn’t going to help you fix it.
Erich, I don’t know that I agree. Science is pretty clear that a fetus is a human being. It was that determination that aided SCOTUS in the Roe v Wade decision. Where the debate has been, legally, has been on the matter of viability (which doesn’t speak to humanity, so far as I know, but personhood) but not whether the fetus was a human being or not.
Where am I wrong on the science angle?
Just because you keep saying that, doesn’t make it true.
Because it sounds like you’re discussing semantics, not science. Let me try this example–in common usage, ‘human being’ and ‘person’ are the same thing. But, as you note, legally the concepts are different.
Likewise, in medical science, there is a specific definition of human being, but it is also common to use a more general, colloquial definition in the literature. Depending on which one you use (and again, this isn’t a question of science), a fetus is, or is not, a human being.
I think the confusion is caused by the difference between science (use of the scientific method to obtain knowledge of general truths or general laws) and scientific terminology (specific definition of words used among scientists); the latter are not a product of science, just the jargon of that particular group of people. The scientific definition of a word is not better, or even more accurate, than the colloquial use, it’s just (usually) more unambiguous.
(Incidentally, that’s why arguments like “evolution is just a theory” don’t hold water–the scientific term “theory” isn’t the same as the colloquial word. The conversational meaning of “theory” matches the scientific term “conjecture”.)
I am discussing semantics, because the semantic distinction is important. So far as I know (and I could well be wrong), the scientific definition of “human being” includes the unborn as well, to a certain point (which is the matter of viability I mentioned a few comments ago).
If we’re going to make the discussion a moral one, which I think we must eventually, I think it’s best to separate the term “human being” from the term “person”, mostly because of the different concepts at work, as you pointed out. During slavery, we did reckon slaves as human beings in any way a scientist could determine but not as people.
jimmie, i think that reasoning is incorrect and grotesque.
that being said, your tone sounds uncharacteristically speculative and tolerant of porous, nuanced thought. it’s more comfortable to be wrong in front of friends than right in front of enemies, isn’t it?
if i am reading you correctly (you encouraged me not to do that once, then erased it; sorry to cross that boundary again), then i like your new, less-glib style.
i still hope you’ll address my earlier posts.
Grotesque in what way?
grotesque in the sense of being bizarre, i.e. driving a wedge between ‘personhood’ and ‘human being-ness (?)’; and fanciful, i.e. imagining that a justification for slavery and a condemnation of abortion lie in the gap between those two concepts.
if we are going to make this conversation a moral one, as you rightly suggest is necessary, we’ll need more than new, weird definitions. not to sound hokey, but we’ll each need to trust the other is a thinking, feeling person. otherwise, it will just be the most clever person who decides whether fetuses are people. my own views on this issue are pretty extreme — i don’t feel that a child is technically a person until it has language — yet even i see that abortion is an issue that cleverness can’t penetrate.
i don’t believe you think that fetuses are full people like you and i are. i think you figured that position was the most defensible way to attack abortion. why do you condemn abortion? please provide an answer with shades of grey, if you still think it’s appropriate.
Okay, then let’s not separate the terms, since you can’t seem to get past my doing so. However, I don’t believe there is a gap between the terms as I separated them out. One deals with what things are and the other deals with what things may be. One term is objective and one subjective. It is also not true that thinking someone a human and not a person is fanciful. It was, in fact, how we justified slavery for a very long time. One of the things the abolitionists did that led to the end of slavery in this country was to get people thinking of slaves as people. Our military does the opposite thing, to a degree, to train solders to fight the enemy.
I believe that fetuses are human beings who should possess the same basic right to live as every other human being. That means that no one has the right to take their life unless extreme circumstances require it. I condemn abortion because it kills human beings who have done nothing to deserve that death, generally for less than extreme reasons.
This argument doesn’t require cleverness. It does, however, require reasonableness enough to give the other side credit for not being rampant baby killers/rank enslavers of women.
That’s fine, but it’s not the point. Now I’m arguing semantics, too–if you say “science says,” as an appeal to authority to support your argument, then your audience is likely to think you’re referring to knowledge gained through scientific methods.
In this case, what you’re actually referring to is scientific terminology, which is not based on any scientific procedure. It’s just the conventional use of language scientists have arbitrarily chosen, and your only appeal to authority becomes, “Scientists are smart. Smart people pick good words.”
Fair enough. I wan’t actually using the appeal to authority (or I wasn’t trying to do so intentionally), though I realize it appeared that way. What I was trying to say is that there is a difference between what is meant by the scientific term and the colloquial term and that the scientific term doesn’t help me much in the discussion, since I see the entire debate as involving subjective belief instead of something we can put to a scientific test (like we can the scientific term to a very large degree).
I was using the word “personhood” to indicate that we’d be tiptoeing through less sharply-defined realms if we really wanted to tackle the abortion issue.
a semantic point: the distinction you describe,
“One [term] deals with what things are and the other deals with what things may be.”
is not the difference between ‘objective’ and ’subjective.’ it is the difference between ‘indicative’ and ’subjunctive.’ you should have said, ‘one term deals with what things are and the other deals with what things are perceived to be.’ that is muddier ground, but it’s more in line with your point.
one of the reasons the comparison with slavery is disturbing is that not only did the abolitionists encourage the public to think of slaves as people, they also, directly or indirectly, instigated a war that killed thousands of people (who are comparable to george tiller in your analogy). don’t get me wrong — thank god for that war, without which we would have remained a primitive nation — but if you believe in the full humanity (and personhood, i suppose) of fetuses, it is contradictory to condemn george tiller while applauding the abolitionist sentiment. (contradictory views are the best kind! but they are hard to be glib about and easy to attack.)
i think your slavery comparison is too fraught to be useful. even so, there is something powerful in what you’re saying. if i may make a suggestion, instead of comparing fetuses with slaves, you should compare them with children. after all, children do not have the full rights and responsibilities of (adult) personhood. the law protects them from harm only by virtue of their potential to one day assume those rights. fetuses, in most cases, have the same potential.
if the law acknowledges the value of that potential in children, why not in fetuses? i don’t know a good argument against that (though i suspect such an argument would take the form of a ‘challenge of assumptions’); i hope someone here who supports abortion can come up with one.
my tone was more abrasive than i meant it to be in my last response. i wonder if there’s anything more annoying that a person who hides the seismic tensions of his contradictory views behind an ad hoc argument he reckons air-tight. when you say stuff like, ‘you can’t seem to get past my [separation of terms,]‘ you’ve got a hint of desperate condescension. i’ll ignore it, because i think we’re beginning to understand each other.
‘I condemn abortion because it kills human beings who have done nothing to deserve that death, generally for less than extreme reasons.’
i disagree fundamentally. nevertheless, that answer feels honest to me. now, can you give an equally honest explanation of why you condemn george tiller’s murder?
sorry to post so much, and thanks for indulging my questions.
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