Showing posts with label abolish human abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abolish human abortion. Show all posts

Saturday, June 15, 2019

What's the goal of the prolife movement?

1. I'm on what's conventionally labeled the "incrementalist" side of the prolife movement (in contrast to abolitionists). However, I don't think casting the issue in terms of incrementalism v. immediatism is the best way to frame the issue. 

As I understand it, the usual claim is that incrementalists share the same goal as abolitionists. Both sides aim to eliminate abortion entirely. But they differ on strategy and tactics. 

2. I think incrementalists take this position in part because they are put on the defensive by abolitionists. Imagine if the incrementalist said, "As a matter of fact, eliminating abortion entirely is not my goal". 

i) Is that a damning thing to say? Well, that depends. The statement is ambiguous. It could be taken to mean I don't think we should eliminate abortion in toto. In general, that would be a morally deficient position–although even most hardline prolifers make some exceptions (e.g. ectopic pregnancies). 

ii) However, we need to distinguish between goals and ideals. A prolifer might say eliminating abortion in toto is the ideal, but not the goal, because that's an unattainable goal. Is that a scandalous thing to say?

Suppose a doctor has a patient in the early stages of MS. Is it the doctor's goal to cure the patient? No, because he doesn't have a cure for MS. Imagine if the patient became irate: "What kind of doctor are you that it's not your goal to cure me!" But that's no fault of the doctor. It's not his goal to cure the patient because he's in no position to cure the patient. It can be the goal of a medical researcher to find a cure for MS, but not the average physician. 

3. That said, there can be value in having ambitious goals. One rationale for having ambitious goals is that if you aim higher, then even if you fall short of your goal, you may come closer to the goal that if you lowered your expectations. 

Take an Olympic athlete who thinks he has a shot at winning a gold medal or breaking a record. He may push himself harder, and have a better chance of success, by aiming higher.

Or take an underdog sports team that's up against the best team in the league. The opposing team is undefeated. So the odds are stacked against the underdog team.

If the underdog team goes into the game with a defeatist attitude, that's a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom. A defeatist attitude is self-defeating. It pretty much ensures failure.

If, however, the underdog team aims high, it might score a surprise upset. Perhaps the opposing team was overconfident. The opposing team didn't bring their best game to the competition because they thought they were unbeatable.

4. However, it really depends on the examples we use to illustrate the principle. It's easy to come up with counterexamples where an ambitious goal is foolhardy. Suppose your goal is to graduate from Harvard med school. Suppose you don't have the chops to compete with the cream of the crop. You are no match for your classmates. As a result, you wash out of Harvard med school with humongous student loan bills. 

Suppose, if you aimed lower, you could graduate from a perfectly reputable, but less prestigious med school. By aiming too high, you missed out on both. You flunked out of Harvard, and you blew the opportunity to become a physician by attending a less demanding med school.

In addition, some Harvard students commit suicide because they just can't cut it, and they are too ashamed to face their pushy, ambiguous, disappointed parents. 

To take another example, some competitive athletes suffer injuries at the gym. They push their body to the limit, hoping their body will adapt, but they push their body beyond the limit. They suffer injuries that require surgery. As a result, they may never get back to where they were before the injury.

And they weren't injured in the game. They didn't get to that point. This was conditioning to prepare themselves for the game, but as a result of the injury, they had to drop out.

So overly-ambitious goals are counterproductive. You don't end up with more. You end up with less–or nothing at all. Indeed, you may be worse off than when you started. 

5. One of my concerns with making the total elimination of abortion the goal is whether setting the goal there is the justification for opposing abortion at all. Does the warrant or rationale for saving babies depend on having as a goal the total elimination of abortion? Is it not worth the effort if that's an unattainable goal?

To take a comparison, historically, Christians have been in the vanguard of founding orphanages. Should the goal be to have enough orphanages to care for every abandoned child? Suppose we lack the resources for that laudable project. Imagine someone setting a quota or threshold: unless we can save all orphans, or 90%, we won't build any orphanages! Let them all die on the street!

Rather that stipulating an artificial goal, we should just do as much as we can. Saving babies isn't predicated on the prospects of winning, as if it's not worth the fight if you lose. You do the best you can. To revert to the illustration, if you can only save a fraction of abandoned children, that's heartbreaking, but it hardly means you throw in the towel and refuse to save the few you can.   

6. We should distinguish between targets and goals. Instead of having a utopian goal which may or may not be attainable, we should have targets. Not making the total elimination of abortion your goal doesn't mean you stop short even if you were making steady progress, and could achieve even more reductions in abortion. 

We don't know what the future holds. If you secure one target, you move onto the next target. One might say the elimination of abortion is the goal if it's possible to eliminate abortion. If it's not possible to eliminate abortion, then that's not the goal. There's no obligation to pursue or commit to impossible goals. A problem with a setting hard-n-fast goal is that we don't know in advance if that's attainable. 

7. Abolitionists accuse incrementalists of faithlessness, but there's no biblical promise that God will eliminate all or most evil during the church age. There's no biblical promise that God will eliminate murder during the church age. To some extent we find out what's possible by doing what we can.

Friday, June 14, 2019

Pacifism and abolitionism

It's been a while since I've commented on AHA, but as I noted in a recent Facebook discussion,  AHA has conflicting principles. The ultimate priority for abolitionists isn't to save babies but to preserve their imagined sense of moral purity. They regard incrementalism as ethically compromised. 

This means that when push come to shove, if the abolitionist strategy resulted in a thousandfold increase in abortions (or infanticides), abolitionists would continue to support it because their imagined sense of moral purity trumps saving babies. It's not about saving babies at all, but keeping their hands clean (as they define it). If incrementalism saved more babies than abolitionism, they'd opt for saving fewer babies or none at all, rather than saving more babies but getting dirt under their fingernails in the process. They will only save babies if they can keep their white gloves pristine. They sacrifice the lives of babies to preserve their puritanical scruples rather than sacrificing their puritanical scruples to save the lives of babies.

There's a direct parallel between pacifism and abolitionism. A pacifist deems it intrinsically wrong to take life to save life. He makes no distinction between the life of a murderer and the life of the murder victim. If he had a chance to shoot the sniper in the clock tower who's gunning down little kids in the park, he will let all the kids be shot to death because his priority isn't saving innocent lives but keeping his hands clean (as he defines it). He will dismiss arguments for the right of self-defense as "pragmatism," "consequentialism," "situation ethics," "moral relativism". He will categorically dismiss the lesser-evil principle or the end-justifies-the-means.

That's directly parallel to abolitionists, only their target isn't the right of self-defense, but incrementalism. Like the pacifist, they'd rather keep their hands clean (as they define it) than save innocent lives. 

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Retroactive punishment

AHA is schizophrenic on the question of criminal penalties for abortion. Russell Hunter did a video in which he said murder is a punishable crime. We should treat abortion as murder. The punishment for someone who murders another human being by abortion should be the same as the punishment for someone who murders another human being with a knife or a gun. He was quite emphatic on the point:


Yet AHA been posting testimonials by women who say:

I had an abortion and I am not a victim
I am a repentant murderer redeemed by my Lord Jesus Christ.

Does AHA think that if Charles Manson was penitent, the murder charges should be dropped?

Will Abolitionist lawmakers sponsor bills to execute women who had abortions? 

It's not just a question of "punishing" women. What's the just punishment for murder? Don't conservative evangelicals generally think murder ought to be a capital crime? 

But I see AHA deny that they are referring to retroactive punishment. Why not? There's no statute of limitations on murder, and for good reason. 

Yet I also see AHA say that "If you listened to those who created the recent memes, every one of them is prepared to go and turn themselves in for the murder they have committed, once abortion is made illegal."

What is that if not retroactive punishment? 

AHA accuses prolifers of inconsistency. Doesn't seem like AHA has a consistent position. 

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Wise as serpents and harmless as doves

This is a sequel to my earlier post:


i) I've now skimmed a number of articles by people on both sides of Trump's statement (about the need to punish women who procure an abortion), viz. David French, Joe Carter, Ted Cruz, Doug Wilson, Denny Burk, Robert George, Ross Douthat, Scott Klusendorf, Russell Moore, Albert Mohler. Some are better than others. 

Then you have the critics of the critics, viz. AHA, Marcus Pittman, Jordan Hall, R. C. Sproul, Jr., and Bnonn Tennant. Of these, Bnonn's response is easily the most intelligent–which comes as no surprise. 

Regarding AHA, Abolitionists indulge in moral showboating to make themselves feel pure and spotless. The same mentality as Social Justice Warriors. 

Ironically, it reminds me of nominally prolife Republicans who vote for prolife bills when the bills have no chance of passage, or when they know the bill will be vetoed. A free vote. They vote prolife when they are in the minority. But when they have to take a vote that will actually stick, they balk. 

ii) The problem with critics of Trump's statement like Doug Wilson and Russell Moore is how they infantilize women. It's very paternalistic. They use minimizing arguments in reference to women that they'd never use in reference to a (male) teenage thug who shoots the 7/11 cashier. Isn't this the classic "victim of tragic circumstances" defense? No doubt the thug's behavior reflects deficient moral formation. No doubt that often reflects his upbringing. But conservatives don't think that's exculpatory. It's not the absence of moral formation that makes people evil. Rather, moral formation suppresses our natural inclination to commit evil. 

iii) Abortion apologists sometimes try to put prolifers on the spot with the following question: If you believe abortion is murder, and if you believe in in capital punishment, don't you think mothers who consent to abortion should be executed? 

That line of questioning is designed to make them squirm, blink, backpedal, and expose their inconsistency.

I see AHA accusing prolifers of pulling their punches in response to Trump, but I haven't seen AHA run on a plank of executing mothers who consent to abortion. Maybe I missed it. But given how AHA attacks prolifers for their (alleged) inconsistency, isn't that the logical alternative that AHA ought to take and advocate? And if AHA isn't doing that, then isn't AHA pulling its punches? 

There's no statue of limitations on murder. Just since Roe v. Wade, there've been nearly 60 million abortions in America. Some mothers have multiple abortions. And some of those women have died.

But do AHA, Jordan Hall et al. think we should execute about 50 million American women (give or take)? Is that what AHA is proposing? 

iv) The attacks of AHA in the wake of Trump's statement are opportunistic. What AHA is too blind to appreciate is that that prolifers face a genuine dilemma. The establishment is always itching for a chance to discredit the prolife movement. Always spoiling for an opportunity to remove the one obstacle to killing babies. 

The quandary this creates for prolifers is how to respond when too much candor will hurt the innocent. Prolifers are in a situation somewhat analogous to sheltering Jews from Nazis. If you're too forthright with the Nazis, they will use it against the Jews. You can't hang a sign outside your home that says: 

Jewish refugee center

If you're living under Nazi occupation, and you wish to shelter Jews, discretion trumps outspokenness. Likewise, the French and Italian resistance didn't aid the Allied war movement by standing on street corners denouncing Hitler, Vichy, and Mussolini. 

By the same token, if a prolife politician says mothers who consent to abortions deserve to be punished, his candor endangers the innocent. It's no virtue to be frank and forthcoming when the innocent will suffer as a result. Just as Nazis are not entitled to the truth if they exploit the guileless to murder Jews, prolife politicians have no obligation to make statements that expose babies to even greater risk of harm. There's no duty to say things that are counterproductive to the cause of saving innocent lives–anymore than good Samaritans who wish to hide Jews from Nazis have an obligation to engage in self-defeating behavior. 

The statements of AHA, Marcus Pittman, and Jordan Hall play straight into the "war on women" narrative. And that endangers babies. That brings the effort into disrepute. The abortion lobby lies in wait for any damaging action or statement it can twist to tar the movement as a whole. 

v) Now, just to forestall any misunderstandings, I'm not suggesting that prolifers need to lie about their true agenda. There is no hidden agenda to punish mothers. That's not in the cards. To say mothers who murder their babies deserve to be punished is an ethical statement about just deserts, not a plan of action. 

vi) Moreover, prolife politicians who are asked that question don't have to dissemble. To begin with, the question is academic. There's no reason a prolife politician should allow himself to be drawn into that particular debate. A politician is a man of action. The only pertinent questions are policy questions. Whether mothers who consent to abortion should be punished is a question that's designed to foment unfounded prejudice against the prolife movement. 

There's no general duty to say whatever you think. Indeed, there's sometimes a duty to say less than you think. To be tactful. To cover for the innocent. 

Rather than answer that hypothetical question, a prolife should simply reformulate the question. Instead of debating that counterfactual proposition, he should say the real question is about protecting babies from harm. That's an entirely legitimate way of framing the issue. And that's a strong way to frame it. That puts abortion apologists on the defensive. "You mean, you don't think we should protect babies from harm?" 

vii) Finally, I'd distinguish between politicians and pundits. There needs to be a division of labor in the prolife movement. Because social commentators aren't running for public office, they can get away with making impolitic statements. It is important for some Christians to discuss the culpability of all consenting parties to an abortion. Unwelcome truths need to be spoken–especially when they are unwelcome. But everyone doesn't have the same responsibilities in that regard. 

By the same token, a high-level advisor to a prolife executive, lawmaker, or judge may need to be more circumspect in his public statements than a garden-variety pundit.

Monday, November 16, 2015

"By this time next year, the jig will be up and the dance will be over"



By this time next year there will be hundreds and thousands of people gathering outside abortion mills every day in this country. There will be thousands and thousands of abolitionists taking to the streets and going to the high schools, colleges, and comfortable modern american churches in their cities to expose the evil of abortion and bring it into conflict with the Gospel of Jesus Christ every week. There will be hundreds, if not thousands, of consistently engaged, regularly active, autonomous yet unified, self-directed yet Spirit-led, incredibly powerful Abolitionist Societies spread out across this continent and around the globe. There won't be a person in the Western World who does not know about the presence of people fighting to Abolish Human Abortion on account that it is murder and seeking to end it by treating it like what it truly is; Child Sacrifice.
All of the rumors, assumptions, and slanderous accusations being made against AHA right now will have long been debunked, discarded, denied by all who have ears to hear and eyes to see and the world will be divided into two groups; Abolitionists and Abortionists. By this time next year, the jig will be up and the dance will be over.

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

"Regulating" abortion


One objection which abolitionists raise against incrementalism is that prolifers lobby for laws that merely "regulate" abortion rather than eliminate abortion.

i) For starters, it's worth pointing out that prolifers aren't monolithic. They represent a range of theological traditions. You even have secular prolifers like Nat Henthoff. 

ii) That said, it's deceptive rhetoric to claim, without further qualification, that prolifers wish to regulate abortion. To begin with, "regulation" can have different aims.

a) For instance, at least in theory, the purpose of regulatory agencies like the FDA, FAA, and CPSC is to make products reasonably safe. (Whether the agencies always good at their job is a different question.)

b) By contrast, some communities or municipalities that are hostile to Christianity use or misuse zoning regulations to block the construction of new churches. In that case, the objective is to regulate something out of existence. 

When prolifers lobby for "regulatory" legislation, that's just a means to an end. The aim of safety regulations for abortion clinics isn't to make abortion less risky or risk-free, but to prevent it. It's not like the FDA, FAA, or CPSC. It's not regulatory in that sense. Rather, the aim is, as much as possible, to regulate it out of existence. 

These are morally serious distinctions which abolitionists disregard. But to disregard that distinction is both unscrupulous and morally frivolous.

iii) Prolife legislation that "regulates" abortion is a gimmick, but an effective gimmick. It's effective in two respects:

a) It generates a dilemma for abortion supporters by turning their own rhetoric against them. One of the primary reasons they give for the legalization of abortion is to make it safe. They contrast that with the fabled "back alley abortions," epitomized by the coat hanger.

So that puts them in a bind. How can they defend opposing health and safety regulations for abortion clinics? Are they going to say abortion shouldn't be safe after all?

Forcing radicals to be consistent is a useful tactic. Like going into a Muslim bakery and ordering a wedding cake with a homosexual message, or going into a gay bakery and ordering a wedding cake with a straight message. 

One way to repeal a law is to make authorities consistently enforce the law. An ironic and ingenious form of civil resistance is to scrupulously obey a law. Take the classic case of students who hog all lanes of a freeway, side-by-side, driving at the posted limit. It creates a traffic jam, yet it's legal to a fault. And that's the point: to force the issue. 

b) In addition, it is effective because it saddles abortion clinics with so much onerous red tape that they will be forced to shut down. That will reduce access to abortion, which will, in turn, reduce abortion.

iv) Abolitionists claim this is a pyrrhic victory inasmuch as closing abortion clinics simply means customers go to a hospital instead. 

However, it seems to me that hospitals are the most expensive places you can have a medical "procedure" performed, because hospitals must be prepared to do just about everything. Have equipment for everything. Technicians for everything. Doctors on call with various specializations. So you're not just paying for the "procedure" itself, but for the overhead to support the entire medical delivery system. 

Tuesday, July 07, 2015

Why prolife critics can have it both ways


On the one hand, abolitionists are accused of flaunting good works.
On the other hand, since we stand against incremental legislation and incrementalist candidates for public office, and since we don't vote in elections where the only choices are bad ones, it is said we do nothing, we are more concerned with moral and ideological purity than with sparing lives, etc.
So, which is it? Do abolitionists do nothing, or do we flaunt our good works? 
http://blog.abolishhumanabortion.com/2015/06/what-abolitionists-do-why.html

Actually, we can have it both ways. That's because the criticism refers to different things. Prolifers don't criticize abolitionists for doing and not doing the same thing, or simultaneously supporting and opposing the same thing. Hence, there's no inconsistency in the criticism.  This isn't even hard to grasp:

i) To begin with, there's a difference between flaunting deeds you deem to be good, and deeds that are actually good. The Pharisees flaunted their "good works," but in many cases, those weren't truly good works. They were just public demonstrations which the Pharisees thought made them look good, which is why they did them. They were not doing good. 

ii) Moreover, the genuine good works which abolitionists do are not abolitionist distinctives. Rather, that's just a continuation of the same kinds of good works which prolifers have been doing for decade.  

iii) Conversely, abolitionists oppose the distinctive good works of prolifers, viz. putting legal restrictions on abortion. 

Weed whacker


I will attempt to comment on this post:


It's hard to evaluate Reasnor's argument because it's hard to find his argument. It would take a weed whacker and chainsaw to cut the dead wood and clear the underbrush. And after you wipe the sweat from your brow, it's unclear what's left. Where is Reasnor's argument? His style is so diffuse and vituperative that it's difficult to discern a core argument. A specific argument. But I'll comment on these three statements:

Continuing in his before discussed muddying of the terms, he denies any standard or authority in how he defines specifically historic terms. Instead of looking to history to define historic terms, according to Wilcox, we are to just use his personal definition.

That's a very secondary issue, but since Reasnor makes such a big deal about it, I'll say a few things:

i) I'm struck by the egregious double standard. In my experience, abolitionists are extremely proprietary about who gets to define abolitionism. They do. Only they do. I got into a lengthy disagreement with a prominent abolitionist over this very issue. He takes the position that only absolutists are permitted to define abolitionism. Outsiders are obliged to submit to the insider definition. 

But by that yardstick, Reasnor is disqualified from defining incrementalism. By that yardstick, Wilcox (and his fellow prolifers) has the sole prerogative to define his own position.

ii) All things being equal, it makes sense to begin with the proponent's definition of his own position. However, that's subject to scrutiny. 

Sometimes their definition is inconsistent. Sometimes their definition is euphemistic, deceptive, or evasive. Consider how proponents of abortion and euthanasia define their terms. So there are times when it's proper and or even necessary to challenge insider definitions.

In sum, there's no uniform position on who ought to define the position in question. 

Any bill that regulates, compromises, and discriminates unrighteously assumes explicitly that Caesar has the legitimate right to dictate “from on high” (as Klusendorf says) who gets to live and who is abandoned to the slaughter. In fact, in large part Wilcox's and Klusendorf’s arguments for Incrementalism RELY on Washington DC having the ultimate authority. 

That's equivocal. What kind of authority are we referring to? Moral authority? Legal authority? 

From a Christian perspective, God is the ultimate moral authority. But from a public policy standpoint, if the objective is to outlaw abortion, then, by definition, it comes down to legal authority. Primarily, state and Federal legislative branches, but that requires the cooperation of the executive and judicial branches as well.

Since the goal of AHA is supposedly to criminialize abortion, then AHA can't sidestep Washington DC. They can't get a law passed by pulling rank on Washington DC, for any law would emanate from Congress (or state legislatures). Washington DC is the ultimate legal authority for the legal abolition of abortion in the US. 

Incrementalism as displayed and supported by the Pro Life Movement, understood by historic Abolitionists, and discussed by modern Abolitionists is incompatible with scripture because it is doing evil for good to come. An incremental strategy to end an institutional and abominable sin is doing evil because God does not allow for regulation, compromise, or partial obedience. God demands much more. Do not seek to simply compromise or regulate what God hates. Any support for a law that purposely discriminates against humans created in the Image of God, and abandons some to the slaughter does exactly that. It compromises on MURDER, and although it seeks some good (though it fails), it culturally reinforces the legitimacy of murder, and legally reasserts bad law. If we view abortion as an abhorrent sin before the eyes of God, as it clearly is, and not simply a social ill and political position, then we must ask the question “what does national repentance of the sin look like?” The answer to that question is not some sort of faux repentance in the form of regulatory acts and putting abolition off. The textual examples given in my opening statement plainly show how God views partial obedience and making compromises with evil. Support for regulationist bills assume the legitimacy of the act it is regulating. Support of regulationist bills reinforce the legitimacy of abortion in the general psyche of the culture. Scripture is not silent on incrementalism because scripture is not silent on compromising with evil. Scripture is not silent on incrementalism because scripture is not silent on doing evil for good to come. Scripture is not silent on incrementalism because scripture is not silent on partial obedience. How does one justify compromising on such basic biblical principles?

i) The obvious problem with this objection is that it begs the question. Whether a legislative compromise is equivalent a moral compromise is the very question at issue. 

ii) In addition, moral compromise depends on intent. Since passing a law requires the cooperation of many legislators, the motivation of one lawmaker will often differ from another. The intention of lawmakers who wish to restrict abortion as much as they can is virtuous even though the intention of other lawmakers to permit abortions not covered by the law is vicious. 

These are rudimentary ethical distinctions which abolitionists routinely ignore. Abolitionists aren't morally serious thinkers. They don't do the hard work of drawing necessary distinctions. Instead, they resort to simple-minded slogans, which they repeat ad nauseam, despite correction. 

iii) Reasnor disregards many examples in the Mosaic code where the law regulates evil customs. Take purchasing foreign slaves. Human trafficking is evil. In this case, the Mosaic law makes the best of a bad situation. 

iv) Scripture nowhere says or implies that "support of regulationist bills reinforce the legitimacy of abortion in the general psyche of the culture."

v) To say that "support for regulationist bills assume the legitimacy of the act it is regulating" is a thoughtless statement that makes no effort to consider easy counterexamples.

For instance, Plains Indians couldn't defeat the American infantry. As a result, Indian tribes had to negotiate treaties with the Federal gov't from a position of weakness. Did they presume the legitimacy of the process? Hardly. But it was a choice between a bad negotiated settlement and a worse alternative.  

Swamp fever


AHA as an ideology does not have a specific eschatological position or an official position on Theonomy. There is diversity among abolitionists worldwide on these particular issues. I'll  certainly admit that I am a Theonomist, and it’s amusing to me that men like Steve Hays have appropriated that fact as somehow discrediting me or Abolitionism, as if Theonomy is a boogie man, or that it is the official position of Abolitionism. If Steve Hays desires to dig up additional piteous ad hominen attacks against me and Abolitionism, he should feel free to just ask me, instead of creeping around my FaceBook. I’m quite open. Although I believe that a Theonomic position is more explicitly and clearly Immediatist, I utterly reject the notion that one must be a Theonomist to Biblically love their neighbor, proclaim Jesus Christ as King, and faithfully oppose discriminatory compromise. 
http://blog.abolishhumanabortion.com/2015/06/god-has-spoken-incremental-delusions.html?m=1

Poor guy is suffering from swamp fever. 

i) In drawing attention to evidence for his theonomic commitments, I didn't evaluate theonomy. I didn't make a value judgment on the merits of theonomy. I didn't say if that was good, bad, or something in-between. Reasnor's reaction is paranoid.

ii) Inasmuch as the debate topic is "Incrementalism is a strategy incompatible with Scripture," since Reasnor is the point-man for AHA in this debate, if his side of the argument is indebted to theonomic distinctives, it's relevant to notice how that figures in his argument. 

iii) It is hardly an "ad hominem attack" to consider the intellectual commitments which inform a debater's position. If I'm assessing Peter Singer's position on bioethics, it's not "ad hominem" for me to point out that he's a utilitarian philosopher as well as an atheist. 

iv) Reasnor has a public Facebook account. I don't have to "creep" around to find additional info. It's not like I was digging through his garbage. Do most abolitionists suffer from this paranoid mentality? 

It's perfectly legitimate to research the intellectual background of an advocate for a given position. 

iv) Insofar as Reasnor's objections to incrementalism are dependent on his theonomic interpretation of Scripture, when AHA sponsors a debate with Reasnor as their designated hitter, that naturally raises the question of whether the abolitionist objection to incrementalism is inextricably grounded in a theonomic interpretation of Scripture. It presents a dilemma:

Reasnor's theonomic attack on incrementalism either is or is not representative of AHA. If it is, then the intellectual fortunes of AHA are only as good as the case for theonomy. 

If it's not, then Reasnor didn't succeed in presenting the abolitionist side of the argument inasmuch as his particular position is too idiosyncratic to accurately reflect the generic AHA position.  If his argument doesn't even line up with the position he was supposed to represent, then he automatically lost the debate.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

The view from outside the bubble



Please take this question seriously. It is not asking whether or not your local church does any good at all... It's just asking you to consider whether or not your local church is playing an active part in the abolition of human abortion. 
If you took your local church and duplicated it a thousand times over, would that effect the practice of child sacrifice at all, or would it only increase the purchase of Christian books and Pews? 
– T. Russell Hunter

Please take this question seriously. It is not asking whether or not your local abolitionist-only church does any good at all... It's just asking you to consider whether or not your local abolitionist-only church is playing an active part in the abolition of euthanasia, female genital circumcision, sex trafficking, child prostitution/child pornography, &c.

If you took your local abolitionist-only church and duplicated it a thousand times over, would that effect the practice of euthanasia, female genital circumcision, sex trafficking, child prostitution, honor killings at al, or would it only increase the purchase of AHA gear? 

Friday, June 12, 2015

Is AHA an organization?


A prominent abolitionist emailed me to complain about my terminology. I will reproduce my side of the correspondence. This is edited to eliminate personal references. His statements are indented:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You don't even attempt to offer a substantive rebuttal. You don't try to show how my interpretation of the AHA post I quoted is fallacious. It's just your knee-jerk defense of whatever anyone at AHA says or does. 

The AHA post uses a straightforward argument. Resort to violence is logically entailed by the argument it gave. 

Also "at AHA" is a meaningless statement, which I've corrected you on before and on which is based many of your misrepresentations. Yet you forge ahead without taking into account the correctives I offer. THAT is knee-jerk.

You mean, because I don't accept AHA's hairsplitting, nonsensical distinctions about how it's not an "organization" or even a "group"? 

It's AHA that's redefining words. You say it's not a "group," but you say it's a "movement." Well, a movement is a group of people. You say people can't "join" or "belong to" or be a "member" of AHA, but, needless to say, people can belong to a movement.

Likewise, AHA has "societies." Well, what are societies if not "groups." 

In fact, you try to have it both ways:

First, “Abolish Human Abortion” is not a group. 
http://blog.abolishhumanabortion.com/2015/01/is-aha-cult.html 
"Abolitionists are a group of people..." 
http://abolishhumanabortion.com/societies/start-a-local-society/

I don't accept the propagandistic redefinition of words.

I notice that you haven't even attempted to offer a plausible alternative interpretation of the statement I posted. 

Movements aren't groups, or organisations. They're movements. Because words mean things, Steve.
It's not fair to say we're REdefining words. We're defining WHO WE ARE. Just like it would be wrong to say that Calvinists are fatalists. You're not being fair, and that's not loving of you.

Consult a few dictionaries. Movements are organized groups of people, with a common ideology, working together to advance a common cause. 

Yes, you're defining who you are...by twisting language.  

AHA is a social movement. It deploys group action to further its agenda.

Stop saying "AHA says" and "AHA is a group" and stuff like that, because it's false, and you know it's false. The question is: Do you care?

You're being preposterous. Take this:


Or this:


Or this:


You're going to tell me that's not what AHA says? If that doesn't represent AHA, who or what does it represent? Disneyland? 

An, an "ideology" can't speak for itself. An ideology is an abstraction for what the ideologues say it is. People define an ideology. It's a set of ideas by a person or persons. 

A group can have subsets. Groups within groups. Collectives. 

Your effort to drive a wedge between the singular and the plural is arbitrary.

Abolitionists define AHA as both an ideology and a group. Groups can say things. A member of a social movement can speak for the movement.  

It's bizarre that abolitionists are so hung up on these artificial, semantic quibbles. 

You're being simplistic. To state "AHA says" is shorthand for "representatives of AHA say."

To state "CBS said" is shorthand for "a CBS reporter said."

Do you really need to have anything that elementary explained to you? 

It's true that at one time AHA was spoken of as a group, but for a long time now we have been trying to reform our language and be careful to speak of it as what it actually is - an ideology. Sometimes even the most experienced of us slip up. You ought to be engaging what our position actually is, though, not slip-ups.

You can't obligate me to use your irrational descriptors, any more than I'm obliged to call Bruce Jenner a woman or Caitlyn. 

Like it or not, AHA is an organization. It has spokesmen. They post on the AHA blog and Facebook wall. 

AHA isn't just an ideology. Rather, it's a social movement, an organized group of people united by a common ideology and a shared purpose.  

It's a waste of time…

You emailed me, not the other way around. You're wasting my time. 

You don't get to define who we are or what we have set up, especially not in the face of our protestations to the contrary. You're the Arminian insisting that Calvinism is fatalism despite many reasons to the contrary. You're that guy. Stop being that guy. 

As a matter of fact, I do have the right to define things in the face of protestations to the contrary. I have a right to define homosexuality and transgenderism in the face of protestations to the contrary. I have the right to define atheism in the face of protestations to the contrary. 

A social movement or ideology is not entitled to dictate how other people must view it simply because it wants to be viewed a certain way. It only gets to define itself if in fact its definitions are reasonable–which is not the case with AHA's fabricated, illogical dichotomies and disjunctions. That's not something you get to impose on other people just because you say it or just because it serves your purpose.  

When open theists redefine omniscience, then say they affirm omniscience, I reserve the right to say they deny omniscience. 

Intellectual honesty would demand you deal with who we really are, not who you want us to be. 

Well, John Reasnor is an XRecon theonomist, and he used that to define AHA in your sponsored debate with Wilcox. Is that what AHA really is? 

Intellectual honesty demands that I distinguish between who you really are and who you imagine you are. 

Part of your mistake is thinking of AHA as a top-down group. We are neither top-down nor a group. It may be difficult for you to imagine that, as I get the feeling you're in the rut of thinking everything has to be some sort of institution. 

I notice you don't quote anything I've said to that effect. That's just your idiosyncratic definition of an organization, as if, by definition, an organization must be a top-down group.

I notice you've reciprocated nothing about love in your emails. 

I'm amused by your hypocritical refrain about love, when AHA routinely slanders prolifers.

Tuesday, June 09, 2015

Incitement to violence


In the past, AHA has said it eschews violence. But it recently posted this:

"What Christ says is to love my neighbor as I love myself. If someone were coming to kill you, you would do more than stand up and shout, 'Help!'. If someone were trying to kill you, you would oppose them with everything you have, because you love yourself. I ask that you think in those terms when you consider the pre-born child who is slated to die."


What is this if not an open incitement to violence? It's an argument from analogy. It considers verbal dissuasion inadequate. Rather, you'd oppose the assailant with whatever you've got. 

It presumes the right of self-defense, then extends that principle to protection of the unborn. According to the right of self-defense, you're entitled to use violent means, up to and including lethal force, if necessary, to protect yourself from being killed or maimed by wrongful aggression. 

By parity of argument, that's permissible and, indeed, obligatory, in defense of your neighbor (i.e. unborn babies). 

Moreover, protecting the unborn by the same means you'd use to defend yourself can't be qualified without destroying the analogy, which is the basis of the argument. 

Friday, June 05, 2015

The burning building


I'll comment on this:


First, the burning building narrative is an example of direct action. If children are at risk of dying in the burning building, our attempt to rescue them is direct action: physical action to intervene and save those at risk. The appropriate parallel would be to relate the narrative to the proper physical action that Christians should take when they know someone down the street intends to kill their preborn child. What physical intervention should be taken on behalf of children brought to the abortion clinic (killing center) to be destroyed? This is a very challenging question.

But having posed the question, he ducks the question. How does AHA answer that question? If he' thinks that's the right analogy, then what is he saying? That if we shouldn't physically intervene to protect unborn babies, then we shouldn't physically intervene rescue kids in a burning building?

Or does he think we should physically intervene in both cases? If so, what does that mean? AHA allegedly eschews violence. So what does he mean by physical intervention? Preemptive action or empty gestures? Action to prevent an outcome–or standing around with props (e.g. placards of aborted babies)? 

Abortion legislation is not direct action. Rather, it is indirect action that establishes the legislative framework for criminal behavior.

Simply drawing a distinction between direct and indirect action fails to show how that's morally germane to the issue at hand.

If one were to equate abortion legislation to the burning building analogy, the equivalent idea in the narrative would be the extent that laws criminalize the intentional setting of fires at orphanages.

That's not the equivalent idea. The burning building example isn't meant to illustrate direct action, indirect action, or physical intervention. It's meant to illustrate the principle of a forced option where you can't save all, so you have a choice between saving some or saving none. Those are the only two viable alternatives at the time.

To draw extraneous distinctions which the example was never intended to illustrate is irrelevant to the purpose of the illustration. He hasn't show how the example is disanalogous in reference to what it was meant to illustrate. 

Second, the narrative’s hero risks his physical well-being for victims in danger. But support for compromised legislation that limits, restricts, or regulates child sacrifice does not risk the supporter’s physical well-being.

That's another irrelevant distinction. The point of the example is not to illustrate moral heroism. What makes saving innocent lives good isn't that the rescuer is risking his own life. Saving innocent lives would be just as good if that was risk-free. The action itself is virtuous apart from the motivations of the rescuer. Once again, his parallel is beside the point. 

If the rescuer engagers himself in the process, that says something good about him. His courage is commendable. But the goodness of the action is independent of what motivates the agent. It would be good to save innocent lives even if his intentions were malevolent. Does AHA think we have no duty to save innocent lives unless we endanger ourselves in the process? If we can do so safely, should we not do so? Should I only save an innocent life if that puts my own life at risk? 

Incremental abortion legislation leaves some children with zero protection from murderers.

And opposing even incremental legislation leaves all children with zero protection from murderers. Does AHA think we should repeal restrictions on abortion? Have unfettered access to abortion unless or until it can be banned in toto? 

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Comparing something to nothing


I've already written a general evaluation of this response, now I'd like to zero in on a specific part of the argument:


As noted above, Mr. Cunningham uses these studies to point out that pro-life legislation is effective in saving babies lives.  He further argued that we ought to support these measures because they work, we lack the political clout to completely ban abortion, and failure to take what we can is tantamount to turning our backs on these neighbors.
So what do we make of this?
Even if we admit Dr. New’s analysis is correct and that there is a genuine correlation between abortion rates/ratios and the passage of pro-life laws, we do not think this study address the real question at hand.  Abolitionists do not argue that pro-life laws don’t do some good.  We openly admit they likely have some positive influence in reducing the number of surgical abortions.  The real question, however, is how do we know that rallying around an immediatist position in the 1990s would not have had the net effect of saving even more than are currently saved?  Simply put, Dr. New’s work, while insightful and interesting, cannot address this question because the data sets needed to address it do not exist.  We do not know whether or not a different strategy would have had a worse outcome.  It is entirely possible that the methods used in the 1990s yielded far fewer babies being saved than if a stronger immediatist position had been embraced.  The point is that we don’t know and, as such, these studies are moot. 
To return to the studies Mr. Cunningham raised in the debate, we are grateful that those children are alive, and we are grateful that surgical abortion has been curtailed to some degree.  We suspect, however, that those saved babies are not indicative of God honoring those methods but that He is bringing about good in spite of our failed, compromised methods.

It's important to notice that PChem is changing the subject. Here's a reminder of Cunningham's original statement:

Then, holding up Dr. New’s research on the effectiveness of incremental bills for saving lives, Cunningham asked, “What about these babies? Should we allow them to die instead of passing incremental legislation that would save them?” Hunter initially said “no,” but when Cunningham pressed him for clarification, he called the question a “charade” because if all incrementalists would become immediatists, we could put the ax to the root and end abortion. Gregg continued, “For the record, Russ didn’t answer the question. Should these babies have been allowed to die instead of passing the incremental legislation that saved them?” When Hunter again declined to answer and called incremental victories “shallow,” Cunningham again held up Dr. New’s study and asked, “Are you saying this guy made this stuff up when he said these laws save lives?” 
http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/2015/05/debate-between-gregg-cunningham-and-t.html

Notice that PChem doesn't dispute the accuracy of Cunningham's claim. He concedes that New's studies support Cunningham's claim. Legal restrictions on abortion do, in fact, save babies. 

So far from being "moot," such studies are, by PChem's own admission, directly confirmatory. 

i) Since PChem can't refute Cunningham's claim, or New's supporting evidence, PChem attempts to recast the issue. The "real question" is whether incrementalism saves more babies than immediatism. 

From my reading, abolitionists play a shell game on this issue. On the one hand, there are abolitionists who refuse to admit that incremental legislation saves babies. They claim the restrictions are so easy to evade that they don't save any babies. Or they don't save a "significant" number of babies.

In that respect, it's important to remember PChem's concession. He grants the fact that incremental legislation does, indeed, save babies. He therefore changes the subject. 

From my reading, abolitionists oscillate between these two contentions. Sometimes they resist the claim that incremental legislation is effective. However, their fallback position is to say it doesn't matter if incremental legislation is effective. And they give two reasons: one is to claim that even if successful, the results are tainted by moral compromise.

But the other response is to shift grounds: it's no longer a question of whether incremental legislation is effective, but whether it saves more lives. 

It's important for abolitionists to be consistent. What's their actual argument? 

I think one source of the problem is that abolitionists have developed a conditioned reflex to certain objections. They have prepared answers. The aim is to deflect the immediate objection. They resort to any answer that's convenient at the moment. 

ii) Furthermore, they naturally squirm at having to admit that they are prepared to sacrifice the lives of tangible, living babies at hand to further their long-range strategy of maybe saving more babies at some future point. When you strip away the idealistic rhetoric, it's very harsh to say you will sacrifice babies in the short-term to possibly save more babies in the long-term. You will let babies die today to save hypothetical babies tomorrow. That's a choice they try to duck–even though their position commits them to that hard-nosed calculation. 

ii) In addition, they shift the burden of proof. They act as if the onus is on the prolifer to demonstrate that immediatism saves fewer lives. Of course, that's absurd. It is incumbent on abolitionists to defend their own position. It is incumbent on them to provide supporting evidence for their own position. In fact, their refusal to shoulder their own burden of proof betrays the poverty of evidence for their position. It makes no sense to say: "I have nothing to support my claim–now prove me wrong!" It's not up to prolifers to refute sheer assertions about a nonexistent, alternate history or wishful future.  

iii) PChem's comparison is inapt. The logical comparison would be to ask how many babies in the past would be saved by incremental measures had those same measures been in place at the time.  

Since, moreover, incremental legislation has a track-record, that supplies a frame of reference for extrapolating present laws and present results back in time.

iv) By contrast, immediatism has no track-record. There are no immediatist laws on the books–anywhere. New's studies are not deficient because they failed to compare something to nothing. There's no basis of comparison in the first place. Immediatism has no data to furnish a frame of reference. You can't extrapolate from nothing in the present to something in the past. 

Abolitionists are pinning all their hopes on a wishful future. They have zero evidence at present that abolitionist distinctives will be successful in any degree whatsoever. You can't pull estimates out of thin air. 

As we do this, we see lives changed and people who are used by God to save babies. As abolitionism grows the number of people going to abortion mills, schools, city streets, churches, and everywhere else grows. The number of memes we post, signs we hold, pamphlets we pass out, conversation we have, prayers we make, plans and campaigns we bring to fruition all increase. As a result, the number of abortions taking place will likely decrease. 

PChem doesn't know that abolitionism will grow. He doesn't know that it will probably grow. What if AHA is just a fad–like "Justice for Trayvon"? Compare some stats. AHA Facebook has 35,766 likes. Justice for Trayvon Martin Facebook has 283,346 likes. Remember 'Justice for Trayvon' rallies in 100 cities across USA? But that was just the cause du jour. Social activists moved on to other hot-button issues.

What happens when Facebook pulls the plug on AHA? Will AHA fizzle? Time will tell. But there's no evidence, as of yet, that AHA has any staying power. It's handing out vouchers backed by promises about its future achievements. But that's all hypothetical.