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I and my Uterus Will Finally Weigh In

by Jen Green

There is an expiration date on lots of things: milk, yogurt, and responding to controversies. My dairy is fine, but I may be a little late to this particular controversy. Please, give me a little latitude.

The Left says one is not allowed to have an opinion on baby killing unless one has a uterus. Well, I have one and  I’ve used it to grow human life, so by their (ludicrous) standard, I’m qualified to weigh in. Here goes.

On Friday, I saw someone who is a Facebook friend of mine post an article that she had written calling for Missouri senate candidate Todd Akin to swallow his pride and step aside to “save babies’ lives.”

I was intrigued for a couple of reasons. Number one, I wondered why she had waited so long to respond to the situation. I mean, by Friday the mainstream media had already moved on to the next manufactured controversy of Romney making a birther joke. Best I can figure is she got scared by the 10 point poll shift in the Missouri Senate race and reacted emotionally.

But secondly, her post intrigued me because she has been a stalwart conservative in the past, and I was frankly surprised at her emotional (and, in my opinion, misguided) premise. Simply put, although I don’t know her personally, she’s someone with whom I normally agree–and since we don’t on this particular issue I had to investigate.

So I read her article. I encourage you to do the same. And of course, I had an opinion.  I expressed it this way to her:

Ms. Rios,

Your article assumes two things, 1) If Akin steps aside the person who fills his shoes will win and 2) if he steps aside the person who fills his shoes will also be 100% pro-life such as himself. You assume, wrongfully, that the very hackneyed establishment that is calling to remove a man for one mangled statement (while continually covering for “their own” who do the same thing) will have the pro-life communities best interest in mind and replace Akin with “one of us.” That assumption is misguided, at best.

When, if ever, has the establishment had our backs? Ever? No, I think not.

The people of Missouri choose Todd Akin through the primary process, but if he were to step aside, the party would choose his replacement. Is that the republican form of government we’re trying to save? Again, no, I think not.

And finally, if you follow your logic through to its conclusion, you would also have to ask Romney to step aside as well. His numbers prove he is gaining no traction with the American people. He has made repeated “gaffes” that have been exposed and exploited by the left and the mainstream media. He is a weak candidate and “given how anti-life this president is”, we need the strongest candidate possible, right? Well, that sure isn’t Romney, is it?

And now that he’s co-opted his once 100% pro-life running mate into signing onto a statement saying you can kill a baby if it is conceived in an unfortunate tragedy, we can’t count on Ryan to save the ticket for “us” either.

So, I’ll tell you what–once folks like you who want to be rid of Akin for the sake of the pro-life cause call to get rid of Romney, Ryan, Boehner, McConnell, and every other Republican office-holder or wanna-be that has a lower than 50% approval rating (Boehner and McConnell’s right now is at oh, 7%), then I’ll get right on board with you. Until then, I’ll continue to support our 100% pro-life, 96% America Conservative Union rated Missouri Senate candidate.

I said all that in response to her to really say this: Have an opinion–it’s your right. Articulate it–also your right. However, have proof for your assumptions and then be consistent in your logic and application.

There is absolutely no proof that the Establishment will have our backs–in fact, after the events of this weekend it’s fairly obvious the only help they want to give grassroots conservatives is help out the door.

And if you say Todd Akin is a “weakened” candidate and therefore he must step aside for the sake of the babies, then you have to apply that across the board as well. Romney’s out and we’ll just let the all-knowing party choose a better candidate for president.

I wonder what that will look like.

 

  • http://twitter.com/erikcharter Erik Charter

    What is the polling in Missouri right now? What exactly was he talking about? It sounded like he was repeating something he had learned in a Bill Gothard Seminar. Conservative politicians need to be wise when they are running for an office in which they are representing a whole state.

  • TopsyTurvy

    I think everyone is qualified to have an opinion about anything, especially abortion. However, the only uterus anyone has the right to control is their own.

    • Cecil_S

      Really? So you approve of a woman killing the baby herself no matter how old the baby is? As for that matter, as long as the mother doesn’t want the baby why does she only have the right to kill the baby within a 9 month period?

      • Nahida

        She has the right to remove the baby from her uterus, not to kill it. THAT is what an abortion is. Pregnancies are aborted.

        In other words if the baby survives outside the womb (if, for example, it is a late-term abortion), she cannot *then* proceed to take its life after she has removed it. (And the doctor MUST remove it in a manner that will not harm it.) In fact she is obligated to provide for it with an incubator. The pregnancy has been aborted, but the child is now born–which means she has the legal obligations of a mother unless she gives up custody.

        If the fetus cannot survive outside the womb, it is not entitled to that support. When it is removed, it dies because it *cannot* live on its own.

        The rights of the father begin at delivery, not at conception. *Other* women who are not pregnant do not have rights over the uterus of another. So no, no one whose uterus is not in question has the right to decide.

        • Cecil_S

          At first I thought you were kidding, then it looks like you aren’t. Oh boy. First, it is a human being not a fetus, second under your definition 20 years ago a baby that was 2 months early would most likely have died – today they are routinely saving babies that are 1lb – so 20 years ago a baby didn’t have a right to live but today they do? And who is it that is making the decision on whether a human baby’s life can be taken or saved? This is why “rights” come from God and not from you or a government.

          • Nahida

            *Don’t* police my language. I had the courtesy not to police yours regardless of how ridiculous it is.

            Life that is removed from the womb is not being *taken* simply by virtue of being removed from the womb. The death (if it is not developed enough) is a CONSEQUENCE of that removal. Why would you hold a woman accountable for that death anymore than you would hold accountable a doctor that refuses to treat it? The woman is doing the SAME THING. She is refusing to allow it to live off of her.

            definition 20 years ago a baby that was 2 months early would most likely have died – today they are routinely saving babies that are 1lb – so 20 years ago a baby didn’t have a right to live but today they do?

            How is this relevant? Everyone has the right to live–the point is that your life doesn’t have the right to be *supported* by someone else. If it is depending on the mother’s body to live, the fetus is not entitled to that support. If she wants to remove it from herself, she has every right. If it dies as a consequence, she is no more to blame than the doctor who refused to treat it with an incubator or the scientist who neglected to invent one.

          • Cecil_S

            OK I think I see the problem. You don’t think a baby is a human being until they are born. You think the baby is an it. Therefore we will never agree and you will never be able to see until you understand what a human being is.

          • Nahida

            If you truly believe IT is a *human being* then you would recognize that it has the same rights that are INALIENABLE to all human beings–and that right does NOT include the use of someone else’s body against her consent. All human beings have only an inalienable right to their own respective bodies.

          • Cecil_S

            As I said, until you come to the understanding that a baby is a human being with the rights that our Creator has given us, you will never agree with me. The pro-life movement has been right all along and now the rest of the country is starting to see they were right when they believe that “it” is a human being. Thank you for the discussion.

          • Nahida

            Let me get this straight:

            1. You believe a baby–even when it is unborn–is a human being.
            2. You believe, therefore, that it is endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights. Such as the right to life.
            3. And you believe this inalienable right (to life) includes the right to the provisions of the mother’s body even against her consent.

            You are wrong at the third. I don’t know what society you live in, but in the United States of America we do not take things from people just because we want them, in the name of inalienable rights. I can’t just show up half dead from blood loss and demand that you donate your blood to me against your consent. That is not an inalienable right. I have the right to life. I do NOT have the right to life at your expense.

            You are unspeakably selfish to demand such a thing.

          • Cecil_S

            Like I said until you understand a baby is not a “it” you won’t understand anything I say.

          • Nahida

            If you’re not going to read my comments, don’t reply to them. It wastes my time, and I presume it wastes yours.

          • Cecil_S

            I read every word of your reply. But we won’t get anywhere because you do not believe that a baby is a human being from conception and who is created by God. I thought I got out of the conversation when I thanked you for the discussion. I am happy to continue if you like.

          • Nahida

            You are free to exit the discussion if you wish. You don’t need to continue simply because I am addressing you. I have the inalienable right to speech; I don’t have the *inalienable right* to your attention. Because that requires your consent. And something that requires consent is not an inalienable right.

            If you read the comments you would understand that my argument does not *depend* on whether you consider the fetus a human being. For the sake of the argument, you can take that position. The point still stands. A human being does not have the right to live off of another human being’s body. That is not an inalienable right.

          • Cecil_S

            I will reply just because there might be that chance that you will open your eyes just wide enough to see my point, so it is worth my time and who knows might be worth the life of a unborn baby.
            So you are for partial birth abortion I take it. You know where the baby is born and they just keep the head in far enough to “make it legal” and then jam scissors into the baby skull (as the baby jerks their arms as if they are falling) and then put in a suction tube where the scissors made a hole and suck out the baby’s brains. Then of course they can then discard the “it” and everyone goes home happy. Well except the baby that is.

          • Nahida

            Um. I don’t see how this is relevant to my argument.

            who knows might be worth the life of a unborn baby.

            LOL. What exactly do you think I am? I mean *who* do you think I am?

            Anyway, I am not only for partial birth abortion. I’m pro-choice at any time. First trimester, second trimester, late term.

            The distinction is that what you described it not only an abortion if it is done *after* the life is viable. If the life is independent it is taking the life of another life in addition to an abortion. An abortion does not mean aborting the fetus (or baby, to you)–it means aborting the pregnancy. In other words an abortion alone is removing the fetus (or baby) from the mother. Giving birth is a method of abortion. (Because it is aborting the pregnancy by virtue of removing the child from the body of the mother.) Abortion alone does not involve actively killing the life-form once it is removed. As for whether that life survives by *itself* after removal–that is irrelevant. But it cannot be actively killed.

            If the life-form is not independent, it dies on its own. This consequence does not interfere with the mother’s inalienable right to her bodily autonomy. The fetus only has the inalienable right to its own body, not to anyone else’s. It does not have the inalienable right to be inside its mother’s body.

            When you say that a fetus (or baby) is killed because of an abortion, you are collapsing the act of removing it with the act of killing it. In other words, you are redefining “it died because its body could not support it” to mean “it was killed.” That is the difference between being unable to help someone who is dying and stabbing them to death.

            The reason pro-choice makes a distinction between life that can live independently and life that depends on the mother is because that affects the method employed by the doctor to abort the pregnancy. If the life cannot survive outside the womb, the pregnancy is aborted using any method. If the life *can* survive outside the womb, the doctor is obligated to abort the pregnancy in a way that will not harm it because it is an independent life-form, either by inducing a premature birth or by surgically removing it carefully from the woman who no longer consents to carrying it.

          • Cecil_S

            Where do you come up with this stuff? Why don’t I EVER hear of a mother, after giving birth to her child, hey every one I just had an abortion. Good grief you are really stretching it. You are trying a little bit too hard. If you follow your “logic” then there is absolutely no reason a mother couldn’t just decide after her born abortion to abandon the child. After all how many babies do you know of that can survive on their own after they are born (I mean aborted)? That would be taking the same approach as Obama – he believes if a baby is born from a botched abortion the child “it” doesn’t have the right to live. You believe the same as him. After all what is the difference between a 9 month old baby in the womb and 22 seconds later when they are born (aborted) They still can not live on their own, if you let them lay there they will die. Someone has to feed them. Someone has to sacrifice and give them food or they will die. With your approach we just as well let people die who have been in car wrecks who can not take care of themselves.

          • Nahida

            Where do you come up with this stuff?

            I don’t “come up” with it. You want to talk about inalienable rights, and you have no idea what they are.

            then there is absolutely no reason a mother couldn’t just decide after her born abortion to abandon the child

            No. In fact, there isn’t. Any duty the mother has to the child after the pregnancy is aborted is a result of her social and legal obligations (build on GENEROSITY) to the child–NOT because of the child’s inalienable rights. This is a different, secondary sphere of morality. And generosity cannot be enforced.

            baby is born from a botched abortion the child “it” doesn’t have the right to live.

            That’s right. It does NOT have the inalienable right to care. Only the legal right *if* it has a guardian. Healthcare is not an inalienable right.

            With your approach we just as well let people die who have been in car wrecks who can not take care of themselves.

            So you would arrest a doctor who fails or refuses to treat someone who has been in a car wreck? When you make it illegal for a woman not to “treat” her child with her own body, THAT is what you are doing. Making it illegal to abort a pregnancy is like making it illegal to give up custody.

          • Cecil_S

            I am sorry you are not up to speed but it IS the law that a hospital (doctor) has to treat a patient who comes to the emergency room. You are so set on a baby is an “it” that you are blinded by all your other arguments. So you think a mother / father can just let their 2 month old die of starvation because they don’t want her anymore? Could you do me a favor and read the book 1984? This is beyond incredible that I am even having this conservation in the USA. Are there others out there like you? I shudder to think their might be. and before you think I didn’t read your comments once you said And generosity cannot be enforced by the government — then you believe a parent has the right to kill their own child.

          • Nahida

            Whether a doctor has to treat a patient who comes through the emergency room is completely and entirely irrelevant to whether a fetus is entitled to the living off the body of a woman as an inalienable right. It is NOT. That is infringing on the inalienable right of the mother. A doctor is bound to duties by the civil sphere. The inalienable right of the mother to her own body is * fundamental* and cannot be separated.

            Are you kidding me? 1984? Disregarding the terrible writing style, do you understand what that book is about? When you tell a woman she can’t REMOVE SOMETHING LIVING OFF OF HER from herself and HAS to care for it with her own body, THAT is the government becoming involved–and on an intolerably intimate level. THAT is *enslaving* her to the government. You would never, NEVER, tell a man who refuses to surrender his organs to a patient that he is responsible for aborting the patient and you would NEVER pass legislation forcing him to donate them.

          • Cecil_S

            Ok so now you say it is irrelevant and yet you are the one that brought it up. This is pretty much the same tactic the baby killers have used for years. The main character had sex with a woman – I’m pretty sure she wasn’t wearing one. And we are back to the fact that a baby is not an kidney. They are a human being. God created a woman in such a way so that she could carry a baby. It is really pretty simple if you will just open your eyes.

          • Nahida

            She was wearing one she TOOK IT OFF.

            YOUR eyes are so beyond closed you can’t even identify whose are open and whose are closed. I brought it up because making abortion illegal is even MORE absurd than arresting a doctor for refusing to treat a patient. You are FORCING a woman to provide something to which you are NOT entitled. This is BELOW communism.

          • Cecil_S

            And you think that universal healthcare is keeping the government out of your life? what a joke. That makes me pay for your sexual contraception. For free. Nice. Now that is what I call keeping the government out of your bedroom. You are so convoluted that you believe a woman has a right to kill her born child. You can’t get any more whacked out than that.

          • Nahida

            I’m abstinent until marriage. But YES that’s right. YOU should pay for my contraceptives just like I should be FORCED to contribute my ENTIRE BODILY EXISTENCE which I did not consent to give to another human.

            WHY SHOULDN’T I be entitled to your money? Apparently we’re taking anything we want from people now!

            I know why–because once YOU have to contribute something that could save someone’s life, suddenly you’re not so pro-life!

          • Cecil_S

            hey you are the one that said to get government out of the bedroom. ha ha ha evenly applied what a joke. You people are all alike stay out of my private business, so we produce so called homo marriage. Yeah stay out of my business but make government pay for whatever I want – which is by the way ME. I am PRO choice – all the way around, give the baby a choice too, they don’t have a choice under your terms, just kill them if you don’t want them – what a choice.

          • Guest

            Who said anything about the kid being a kidney? The DONOR who is forced to give up the kidney is the kidney in that comparison, and the recipient is the kid–just like you think a woman is a mess of organs providing life support who can be forced to give things up and not a human being.

          • Nahida

            Who said anything about the kid being a kidney? The DONOR who is forced to give up the kidney is the kidney in that comparison, and the recipient is the kid–just like you think a woman is a mess of organs providing life support who can be forced to give things up and not a human being.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Andy-Wobbema/100002989295825 Andy Wobbema

          “She has the right to remove the baby from her uterus, not to kill it.
          THAT is what an abortion is. An abortion *aborts the pregnancy*.”

          Then why do we not just remove the baby from the Womb instead of killing her first? Who’s to say she can’t survive the day before it’s considered a late term abortion? No instead she her skull is crushed and her brains are sucked out, and then removed. If she’s to mature, she’ll have to be cut up into pieces before being removed.

          “If the fetus cannot survive outside the womb, it is not entitled to that
          support. Any more than another individual is entitled to your organs.
          When it is removed, it dies because it *cannot* live on its own.”

          Why should he be entitled to support if he can survive outside of the womb? He is still “unwanted” by the mother, and is using someone’s resources if he survives.
          A one month old can’t survive without dependence on someone. Perhaps we should be able to “abort” the infancy. After all we’d just be “removing the child from it’s infancy” That doesn’t sound so much like killing him. Come to think of it, could a 6 month old or year old child survive outside the womb without dependence on someone. How about abortion for toddlers? If people like Peter Singer had their way we’d be able to kill “unwanted” children up to three years of age.

          • Nahida

            Then why do we not just remove the baby from the Womb instead of killing her first?

            We do. If the life can live independently outside of the womb we trigger an early birth or remove it surgically so that it remains unharmed.

            Why should he be entitled to support if he can survive outside of the womb? He is still “unwanted” by the mother, and is using someone’s resources if he survives.

            He is *not* entitled to support as an inalienable right. That support is a result of societal obligations. Once he is born the mother STILL is not obligated to support him if she does not *consent* to support him; she can give up custody to someone who does. Likewise when she removes the life from her womb, she is surrendering it to a doctor who may treat it until it is fully developed.

            Perhaps we should be able to “abort” the infancy. After all we’d just be “removing the child from it’s infancy”

            You would be aborting the support, not the infancy. Which again you ARE in fact allowed to do.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Andy-Wobbema/100002989295825 Andy Wobbema

            “That support is a result of societal obligations”

            So if
            society no longer feels it should uphold this “obligation” then an unwanted
            child who is born really doesn’t have to be cared for, and it wouldn’t be wrong
            to let him die? I get it, we don’t have
            to live by any fixed standard.

            “A life dependent will die when removed; a life
            independent will continue to live. Neither are entitled to bodily support.”

            So in either case it’s a life. Whether
            independent (outside of the womb) or dependent (in the womb) or are you saying
            that an unborn child is alive based on whether it can live when removed from
            the womb. Again, I see no fixed
            standard. This can change depending on
            the circumstances and changes in technology as Cecil_s stated. It’s pretty easy to justify anything based
            on subjective truth.

            Also, you say that an unborn child doesn’t have the
            inalienable right to life because his provisions are taken from his mother’s
            body without her consent. In most cases
            this argument doesn’t hold water. Most
            of the time the mother has consented to the act in which the child was
            conceived. Actions do have
            consequences.

            Speaking of consequences you seem to
            say that the consequences of an abortion are avoided if the baby is terminated
            in the womb. Actually you say, “you
            are collapsing the action with the consequence”. I’m confused, how can you have a consequence without an
            action? First you have the action, the
            consequences follow. Of course that would
            be an objective truth also. We seem to
            be avoiding those. The action is the
            abortion. The consequence is either the
            death of the baby, or it’s living outside of the womb. That is if the doctor “aborting the
            pregnancy” is moral enough to give the baby life saving measures. Many of which aren’t.

            You also say the following:

            “1. You believe a baby–even
            when it is unborn–is a human being.

            2. You believe, therefore, that it is endowed by the Creator with certain
            inalienable rights. Such as the right to life.

            3. And you believe this inalienable right (to life) includes the right to the
            provisions of the mother’s body even against her consent.

            You are wrong at the third”

            So if
            you agree with Cecil on the first two points (you must since you didn’t tell
            him he was wrong about these) the consequence of an abortion is the death of a
            human being.

            As
            for the argument that killing a child to save the life of the mother, let’s
            think this through. First less than one
            percent of abortions are done for this reason.
            Now, when is it most likely that a pregnancy would threaten the life of
            the mother? In my experience it usually
            happens near the natural end of the pregnancy.
            So if that’s the case, the pregnancy could be “aborted” and the child
            would be mature enough to be “independent” as you call it. Of course in the quote above, it also seems
            you agree that “our rights come from our creator”. A creator that said, “Thou shalt not murder”. I don’t recall reading “Thou shalt not
            murder unless it saves the life of the mother or was conceived in undesirable
            circumstances.”

          • Nahida

            So if society no longer feels it should uphold this “obligation” then an unwanted child who is born really doesn’t have to be cared for, and it wouldn’t be wrong to let him die? I get it, we don’t have to live by any fixed standard.

            That’s right. Stop pretending it’s an inalienable right. Your standard is completely ARBITRARY. This is the *only* time you would ever DEMAND that someone support another life with her own body. You are infringing on her inalienable right to her body.

            Most of the time the mother has consented to the act in which the child was conceived.

            Absolutely irrelevant. Consenting to having sex is NOT consenting to being pregnant. Not for women, just like it isn’t for men.

            The REASON for aborting the pregnancy is even more irrelevant. No one ever has to justify why they don’t want you to use their body. Ever.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Andy-Wobbema/100002989295825 Andy Wobbema

            That’s the first time anyone has ever called me sexist or a bigot. I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m also sorry you aren’t a christian. You call it a religion, but being a christian is really just a relationship with God. A God who sees us all as equal. A God who created male and female in His image. A God who sent his son to die not just for sinful men, but for sinful women as well; so we could all be saved from our sins and have that relationship with Him.

            Nahida, I truly did try to understand your opinion on this issue and had hoped you would have tried to understand how I feel as well. I’m sorry you feel that you have to resort to name calling instead of having a civil discussion over our differences, and I see that we are at an impasse on the abortion issue; but if you ever want to talk about having that relationship with God, through Jesus Christ as your savior I’ll be here to talk about that with you.

            Thank you for explaining why you believe what you believe in regard to abortion. It really did give me a chance to see where those who don’t agree with me are coming from.

            Andy

          • Nahida

            Calling a spade a spade is not calling it a name.

            Thank you for trying to understand.

            I am not sorry I’m not a Christian. And I am not sorry that you are.

            I am sorry you have such a sexist application of the religion. But I would not try to save you. I would prefer to think I’m not condescending and entitled enough to believe I can. People are not meant to be saved. That is how lives are destroyed. You cannot save someone’s soul; you can only love them. And I have none of that to give. Because unlike Christians I can’t pretend to love things when I just want to save them for my own credit.

            Have a nice life.

  • Alex Jackson
  • http://twitter.com/erikcharter Erik Charter

    Is that really your uterus?!

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