Paul Hill: Right or Wrong?

[JSE]

On July 29 1994 Paul Hill shot and killed abortionist John Britton as he was about to enter his abortion mill to perform his daily average of up to 30 abortions.

Hill, a Presbyterian minister, said that we are morally obliged to prevent murder even up to and including lethal force. Pretty much everyone agrees with this as a general principle.

However in a country like the US, abortion is actually legal, so legally anyone preventing abortion with lethal force is classed as a murderer. For this reason Hill was convicted and sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection on September 3, 2003.

http://www.armyofgod.com/Paulhillindex.html for the full story.

[West]

Right. He saved lives & violated illegitimate laws concocted by baby butchers..

[Old Believer]

Right. He saved lives & violated illegitimate laws concocted by baby butchers..

I'm not saying he was right or wrong, but in that case should'nt he have targeted the law makers rather than the doctor?

[West]

I'm not saying he was right or wrong, but in that case should'nt he have targeted the law makers rather than the doctor?
I doubt taking out a bureaucrat would be the same deterent. The doctor is a foot soldier & should behave better than extinguishing lives for money. Whatever multinational company is behind this is the most cuplable of all..

[JSE]

I'm not saying he was right or wrong, but in that case should'nt he have targeted the law makers rather than the doctor?The situation in the US is that it was a Supreme Court ruling, Roe vs. Wade 1973 that opened the door to abortion.

By terminating (see how they like that terminology being used against them) the abortionist, Hill prevented him from killing up to 30 babies that day, or any other day susbequently.

[JSE]

I doubt taking out a bureaucrat would be the same deterent. The doctor is a foot soldier & should behave better than extinguishing lives for money. Whatever multinational company is behind this is the most cuplable of all..The foremost baby-killer company in the US is called Planned Parenthood.

[Old Believer]

The situation in the US is that it was a Supreme Court ruling, Roe vs. Wade 1973 that opened the door to abortion.

By terminating (see how they like that terminology being used against them) the abortionist, Hill prevented him from killing up to 30 babies that day, or any other day susbequently.

It stoped one man killing maybe, but there's always another waiting to step into such a position, it's big bucks after all....
I doubt Hill's action prevented even one murder.

[JSE]

It stoped one man killing maybe, but there's always another waiting to step into such a position, it's big bucks after all....
I doubt Hill's action prevented even one murder.That's not true. In particular, that day, he killed no babies. If he had lived he would have, therefore Hill prevented some killings (even if some of those women went elsewhere). Abortion is a tricky thing for the women, sometimes the slighest thing can put them off.

Also, events such as this result in people leaving the business. People leave the business for less dramatic reasons. They are fed up with being hounded night and day, being embarassed in front of their neighbours. Abortion is in decline in the US because of a whole range of tactics ranging from simple protests through harassment and right up to, ehem, terminations.

Anyway, as is my way, I was more interested in the rights and wrongs of terminating abortionists rather than how effective it might be as a tactic. These are two different questions.

[Old Believer]

That's not true. In particular, that day, he killed no babies. If he had lived he would have, therefore Hill prevented some killings (even if some of those women went elsewhere).

That day perhaps, but in the long term it has had zero effect.







Abortion is a tricky thing for the women, sometimes the slighest thing can put them off.

Agreed.







Also, events such as this result in people leaving the business. People leave the business for less dramatic reasons. They are fed up with being hounded night and day, being embarassed in front of their neighbours. Abortion is in decline in the US because of a whole range of tactics ranging from simple protests through harassment and right up to, ehem, terminations.

Are such tactics justified though?







Anyway, as is my way, I was more interested in the rights and wrongs of terminating abortionists rather than how effective it might be as a tactic. These are two different questions.


To my mind terminating abortionists is wrong, just like abortion is wrong, If justification can be found in terminating the Doctors, it would also lead to a justification for the murder of the patient after they have left a clinic, afterall they have just committed murder themselves...

[The Seamus]

I don't think wasting some greedy "doctor" is worth it, because the point hits home with very few people. To stop this beast one must strike at the purse of the medical establishment a la Fight Club/Project Mayhem styled actions.

[JSE]

That day perhaps, but in the long term it has had zero effect.How do you know?

Are such tactics justified though?That's the question.

To my mind terminating abortionists is wrong, just like abortion is wrong,You are walking down the street, armed, and you see a man with garden shears reaching into a buggy to decapitate the baby inside (he really is going to do it). What are you going to do? I think the answer is obvious. So what is the difference when the man is reaching into the womb to perform an abortion?

If justification can be found in terminating the Doctors, it would also lead to a justification for the murder of the patient after they have left a clinic, afterall they have just committed murder themselves...This is so obviously specious. Hill shot a man who was about to start killing babies. I other words he defended the defenceless. In your example we have gone from defence of babies to inflicting punishment. These are two entirely different actions.

[JSE]

I don't think wasting some greedy "doctor" is worth it,Worth what? Lethal injection? Prison? Saving some babies?

because the point hits home with very few people.You have completely missed the point. Hill was preventing a man from killing defenceless innocent life.
His actions were reported around the world. When I heard about it I remember thinking why is there not more of this kind of thing?

If the profession of babykiller becomes one where their chances of seeing out the year are reduced to a single digit pecentile, then who is going to continue in this?

These are some of the questions.

Thank goodness we do not face such dilemmas in Ireland, but if the abortion peddlers ever had their way, then these would cease to be purely academic questions for us.

[Milesian]

I really can't decide conclusively although I am tending towards saying he was justified. My thinking goes along the lines of this-

I consider killing in war, in defense of your country, as justifiable murder.
You are fighting to protect your people, your families, your children.
Paul Hill obviously was doing the same thing in a different way.
If it were a foreign army coming in and performing abortions on Irish women then you wouldn't think twice about blowing them away. But simply because it is doctors rather than soldiers, and the army is replaced by an army of propoganda to persuade women to volunteer for this "treatment", then it becomes wrong?

If I were to condemn him for what he done then I would be saying that there was no such thing as a just reason for taking another person's life, and thus I would have to become a strict pacifist to remain logical with my beliefs.

[JSE]

I really can't decide conclusively although I am tending towards saying he was justified. My thinking goes along the lines of this-

I consider killing in war, in defense of your country, as justifiable murder.Justifiable homocide, surely.

You are fighting to protect your people, your families, your children.
Paul Hill obviously was doing the same thing in a different way.
If it were a foreign army coming in and performing abortions on Irish women then you wouldn't think twice about blowing them away. But simply because it is soldiers rather than doctors, and the army is replaced by an army of propoganda to persuade women to volunteer for this "treatment", then it becomes wrong?

If I were to condemn him for what he done then I would be saying that there was no such thing as a just reason for taking another person's life, and thus I would have to become a strict pacifist to remain logical with my beliefs.Yes, that's one way of looking at it.
I rather think myself that it comes under a certain responsibility to prevent clear and certain evils from taking place when it is in your power to do so. Like not standing idly by as an old lady is mugged on the street.
I think in the abortion example we have come against the limits of law.

Surely no state may pass a law saying that henceforth black is white and anyone who says different is a criminal? Such would be a manifest tyranny. Similarly no state may pass a law to facilitate the destruction of innocent life? This is the anarchy that is liberalism. Such a law undermines the whole state for by passing such laws the state is undermined, henceforth it is a pseudo-state and we are actually living in anarchy.

[Milesian]

The situation in the US is that it was a Supreme Court ruling, Roe vs. Wade 1973 that opened the door to abortion.


Yes, a case that was based on a lie


Norma McCorvey was the “Roe” of Roe v. Wade , the Supreme Court case that legalized abortion on demand. Ironically, she never had an abortion. In 1969, when she found herself pregnant, she sought an abortion but could not get one because of strong pro-life laws in her home state of Texas. To garner sympathy for her case, McCorvey told people she had been raped. Still, she was not granted an abortion. She eventually placed the child she was carrying for adoption. In 1972 her case, Roe v. Wade, was heard by the United States Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade in January 1973, they reversed the laws banning abortion in every one of America’s 50 states. Before becoming pro-life, McCorvey worked in an abortion clinic.

• “The public had certain misgivings about abortion in the early seventies, but there was much greater acceptance of abortion in cases of rape, so even though I wasn’t really raped, I thought saying so would garner greater public support.”

• [“This means that the abortion case that destroyed every state law protecting the unborn was based on a lie.”

• “I’ve never had an abortion, so I really wouldn’t know how it felt to have one, but I do know the faces that I’ve seen, the women I’ve talked to in the pro-life movement.”

• “A lot of the women that used to come into the abortion clinic used to tell me, . . . ‘You know why I’m doing this, don’t you?’ And I’m like, ‘No, and you don’t have to tell me, either’. . . . They said, ‘I’m just afraid I don’t know how to be a mom.’ And I thought, ‘That’s sad.’”

• “I really hadn’t been happy with anything I saw in the pro-abortion movement. . . . They don’t really care about women. All they care about is your money. If you can give them $295 plus $100 for a sonogram, then they like you, but once you’re gone, they don’t know you.”

http://irish-nationalism.net/showthread.php?t=2792

[West]

I don't think wasting some greedy "doctor" is worth it, because the point hits home with very few people. To stop this beast one must strike at the purse of the medical establishment a la Fight Club/Project Mayhem styled actions.
I'm not sure. The repulsive animal rights activitists in England adopt shock tactics. Even digging up & stealing the corpse of relatives of a farm breeding small animals destined for experimentation. The farm was successfully driven out of business...

Now if only those muck would dedicate their powers to the abortionists instead of hamster owners we'd be in business..

[Milesian]

Now if only those muck would dedicate their powers to the abortionists instead of hamster owners we'd be in business..

Yes, that's the insanity of these types.
They'd happily desecrate corpses or make attempts on people's lives in order to ensure that animals aren't treated cruelly. Sorry, I have nothing against animals. But don't ask me to believe that a rabbit or dog's life is more important than a human's.
Would these people grieve more over the death of their dog than the death of their children or spouse?

Mentuuuuul.

[West]

Yes, that's the insanity of these types.
They'd happily desecrate corpses or make attempts on people's lives in order to ensure that animals aren't treated cruelly. Sorry, I have nothing against animals. But don't ask me to believe that a rabbit or dog's life is more important than a human's.
Would these people grieve more over the death of their dog than the death of their children or spouse?

Mentuuuuul.
These animal activist idiots think that the animal kingdom is arm in arm, swaying side by side, a fun & frolics utopia, when it is in reality a bloody, turbulent, desperate existence..

So even within the objective of saving animals from pain such pyschotic terrorism doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It's more of a human hating excercise than anything else..

[Milesian]

It's more of a human hating excercise than anything else..

Yes, that's probably much closer to the truth.

[Tigernmas]

The doctor made a living through murdering completely defenseless children. What goes around comes around, completely justified in my opinion.
I really don't know how doctors who carry out abortions can sleep at night. Doctors are supposed to provide care to the sick and needy, surely carrying out an abortion, the murder of an unborn child, goes against everything their profession should stand for.

[Milesian]

surely carrying out an abortion, the murder of an unborn child, goes against everything their profession should stand for.
Yes, it does. Hence, Johannes mentioned in another thread how they have now modified the Hippocratic Oath. I would imagine it now has deleted the parts about not offering an "abortive remedy". That would get in the way of making money, which is what the medical profession is now all about.
Everything has become a business driven by profit.

[The Dagda]

I really don't know how doctors who carry out abortions can sleep at night.
I don't know how people who bring unwanted children into the world can sleep at night.

[Old Believer]

I don't know how people who bring unwanted children into the world can sleep at night.

I think that's always a fact that is overlooked in the whole abortion debate, the lack of responsibilty on the part of the expectant mothers in getting themselves pregnant in the first place.

[The Dagda]

I think that's always a fact that is overlooked in the whole abortion debate, the lack of responsibilty on the part of the expectant mothers in getting themselves pregnant in the first place.
Indeed, modern youth culture and society in general are the main problems imo.

[The Seamus]

I don't know how people who bring unwanted children into the world can sleep at night.

They are obviously wanted by God or els ethey would have never been born.

[The Chauvinist]

I would have shaken the mans hand.

[The Dagda]

They are obviously wanted by God or els ethey would have never been born.
Of course they are. :rolleyes

[Milesian]

I don't know how people who bring unwanted children into the world can sleep at night.

It's bad enough when people can't keep their legs shut, but then to murder a child because of your "mistake" is appalling. An innocent must suffer death for the irresponsibility of others? What kind of society passes a death sentence on an innocent child for the "crimes" of another?
What kind of society decides that the wholesale butchering of children is preferable to taking a chance that some of them might not have the best start in life?
Such a society does not deserve to exist, and most likely it probably won't anyway if it keeps up such practises.

Ultimately, there is no good reason for murdering a defensless child.
People may rhyme off a list of scenarios, situations, excuses, sophistic arguments from now until enternity. They might even convince themselves and some others. But they will never change the facts that slaughtering innocents in an indefensible crime.

[finscéal_óg]

Two wrongs don't make a right.

The people who were pregnant would have just went to someone else.

[The Dagda]

It's bad enough when people can't keep their legs shut, but then to murder a child because of your "mistake" is appalling. An innocent must suffer death for the irresponsibility of others? What kind of society passes a death sentence on an innocent child for the "crimes" of another?
What kind of society decides that the wholesale butchering of children is preferable to taking a chance that some of them might not have the best start in life?
Such a society does not deserve to exist, and most likely it probably won't anyway if it keeps up such practises.

Ultimately, there is no good reason for murdering a defensless child.
People may rhyme off a list of scenarios, situations, excuses, sophistic arguments from now until enternity. They might even convince themselves and some others. But they will never change the facts that slaughtering innocents in an indefensible crime.
This brings us on to the debate of at what point in pregnancy the embryo is regarded as a child.

[JSE]

Two wrongs don't make a right.

The people who were pregnant would have just went to someone else.I think you are missing the point. Hill's explanation of his actions rest solely on the moral argument that we are duty bound to prevent a murder from taking place. This is all about prevention, not punishment.

Women are put off abortion by all sorts of things. Abortionists close up business on account of such actions as well as the more widespread peaceful tactics. The statsitics bear this out. Abortion clinics are closing all the time in the US. The Pro-life movement is on course for victory.

[JSE]

This brings us on to the debate of at what point in pregnancy the embryo is regarded as a child.What debate? Human life is formed at the moment of conception.

[Milesian]

Two wrongs don't make a right.

The people who were pregnant would have just went to someone else.
So we shouldn't take action against drug dealers because people would just go to someone else?

[Milesian]

This brings us on to the debate of at what point in pregnancy the embryo is regarded as a child.
As Johannes said, life begins at conception.
That is scientific fact.


A favourite pro-abortion tactic is to insist that the definition of when life begins is impossible; that the question is a theological or moral or philosophical one, anything but a scientific one. Foetology makes it undeniably evident that life begins at conception and requires all the protection and safeguards that any of us enjoy.....


... AS A SCIENTIST I KNOW, NOT BELIEVE, KNOW THAT HUMAN LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION

http://irish-nationalism.net/showpost.php?p=21823&postcount=4

[The Dagda]

What debate? Human life is formed at the moment of conception.
Bollocks !

[West]

Bollocks !
True. There is no difference between a foetus & a baby except that they are at different stages of life..

[just a lurker]

Yes.

Not the easiest answer of my life.

[finscéal_óg]

So we shouldn't take action against drug dealers because people would just go to someone else?

In short...yes. No one deserves to die or get beaten. I think it's highly hypocritical of someone to think abortion is evil by killing babies but then justifying the murder of another human being. Regardless of circumstance, it's wrong. There are better ways to challenge the law than go around killing people.

[finscéal_óg]

True. There is no difference between a foetus & a baby except that they are at different stages of life..

If the foetus feels pain then it's human to me.

[JSE]

If the foetus feels pain then it's human to me.Cats can feel pain, does that make them human?

[JSE]

In short...yes. No one deserves to die or get beaten. I think it's highly hypocritical of someone to think abortion is evil by killing babies but then justifying the murder of another human being. Regardless of circumstance, it's wrong. There are better ways to challenge the law than go around killing people.So we should take it that you are a pacifist?

[West]

In short...yes. No one deserves to die or get beaten. I think it's highly hypocritical of someone to think abortion is evil by killing babies but then justifying the murder of another human being. Regardless of circumstance, it's wrong. There are better ways to challenge the law than go around killing people.
Why do you support the IRA then..?

[finscéal_óg]

Cats can feel pain, does that make them human?

No, silly question. Humans are a totally different species to cats.

[JSE]

No, silly question. Humans are a totally different species to cats.Not silly at all. You said if they feel pain then they are human. As it stands your definition of being human is the capacity to feel pain. My question was intended to highlight the inadequacy of that definition.

[The Dagda]

True. There is no difference between a foetus & a baby except that they are at different stages of life..
Why then do many anti abortionists support the morning after pill ?

[Milesian]

Why then do many anti abortionists support the morning after pill ?
If they support the morning after pill then they aren't really Anti-Abortionists (as the MAP technically works by abortion), but are rather just opposed to certain kinds of abortion.

[The Dagda]

If they support the morning after pill then they aren't really Anti-Abortionists (as the MAP technically works by abortion), but are rather just opposed to certain kinds of abortion.
I agree, it's the type of termination that many people are against because it seems more brutal in nature.

[Milesian]

I agree, it's the type of termination that many people are against because it seems more brutal in nature.
Yes, some people do hold that opinion.
The opinion that the killing of a human is only wrong in so far as it causes suffering and pain. They reason that the MAP is acceptable because the foetus is incapable of feeling pain at this stage.

However, it is simple to demonstrate the error of this line of thinking.
If pain is the only thing morally wrong with this act of murder, then we should be entitled to murder anyone we like as long as it is painless.
That would be logical and yet most would not accept this proposal.
Therefore, their reasoning is not logical.

[The Dagda]

Yes, some people do hold that opinion.
The opinion that the killing of a human is only wrong in so far as it causes suffering and pain. They reason that the MAP is acceptable because the foetus is incapable of feeling pain at this stage.

However, it is simple to demonstrate the error of this line of thinking.
If pain is the only thing morally wrong with this act of murder, then we should be entitled to murder anyone we like as long as it is painless.
That would be logical and yet most would not accept this proposal.
Therefore, their reasoning is not logical.
I have a friend with an elderly mother who has just been told she has cancer, she has asked her son to give his permission to turn off her life support machine should the situation arise, this is euthanasia. Children cannot make decisions like that for themselves so it's up to the parent to decide whether their childs life support machine is turned off in a similar circumstance. I can't see how this is morally different from abortion.

[JSE]

I have a friend with an elderly mother who has just been told she has cancer, she has asked her son to give his permission to turn off her life support machine should the situation arise, this is euthanasia. Children cannot make decisions like that for themselves so it's up to the parent to decide whether their childs life support machine is turned off in a similar circumstance. I can't see how this is morally different from abortion.Are you sure you can't see the difference?
Withdrawing a device and letting nature take its course is completely different from sticking a pair forceps into a womb and tearing a baby apart piece by piece (D&E). Or injecting a saline solution into the placenta and burning the baby slowly to death over many hours. Ever see what happens to a slug when you put salt on it?

[The Dagda]

Are you sure you can't see the difference?
Withdrawing a device and letting nature take its course is completely different from sticking a pair forceps into a womb and tearing a baby apart piece by piece (D&E). Or injecting a saline solution into the placenta and burning the baby slowly to death over many hours. Ever see what happens to a slug when you put salt on it?
Research shows that no pain can be felt until at least the seventeenth week, some Doctors say the twenty sixth week. It makes little difference to me anyway as I'm a very responsible man who won't be getting anyone pregnant in the near future, but for every responsible person there's a hundred idiots who shouldn't be allowed to become parents, but often do because of their stupidity.

[JSE]

Research shows that no pain can be felt until at least the seventeenth week, some Doctors say the twenty sixth week.What has that do with anything? I doubt it is true anyway. If so, why do the baby's writhe around in the womb when they are being salinised?

It makes little difference to me anyway as I'm a very responsible man who won't be getting anyone pregnant in the near futureWhat has someone's personal behaviour to do with establishing the rights and wrongs of an objective question?
but for every responsible person there's a hundred idiots who shouldn't be allowed to become parents, but often do because of their stupidity.Yes, there are, but I can't see how that justifies the execution of the innocent.

[Milesian]

Research shows that no pain can be felt until at least the seventeenth week, some Doctors say the twenty sixth week.
The fact is that they don't really know. They can only infer by watching for a reaction from the unborn child. Every new estimate that comes out shows a pattern in so far as the sensing of pain is found to occur earlier and earlier.
Wouldn't suprise me if it is revised many more times in the future.

But this is all academic as it pre-supposes that the only thing wrong with murder is the pain that it results in. Most people don't really believe that is all that is wrong with murder, although they illogically adopt that stance when it comes to abortion.


It makes little difference to me anyway as I'm a very responsible man who won't be getting anyone pregnant in the near future, but for every responsible person there's a hundred idiots who shouldn't be allowed to become parents, but often do because of their stupidity.
I know what you are saying but there are some points that need to be addressed here.

1) How do we determine who is/isn't responsible enough to be allowed to be parents

2) By what right or authority do we propose to tell people that they can/can't have children

3) Supposing we come up with valid answers for the points 1 & 2, why should the answer to irresponsible parents be sterilisation and infanticide?
Surely adoption solves the problem too without having to take innocents lives?

[The Dagda]

I doubt it is true anyway. If so, why do the baby's writhe around in the womb when they are being salinised
I don't know, I'm not a Doctor.

What has someone's personal behaviour to do with establishing the rights and wrongs of an objective question?
It means I can't be bothered getting into a long debate about something that has nothing to do with me. I'm also implying that people should be educated on social issues and therefore there would be less abortions.

[JSE]

I don't know, I'm not a Doctor.Well they don;t know either for the reasons Milesian has laid out. Not that it has any bearing on the issue.

It means I can't be bothered getting into a long debate about something that has nothing to do with me.I don't suppose anyone has to have views on this one way or the other. But then why respond to such a discussion in the first place?

I'm also implying that people should be educated on social issues and therefore there would be less abortions.Educated by whom and according to what criteria?

[The Dagda]

I don't suppose anyone has to have views on this one way or the other. But then why respond to such a discussion in the first place?
To let people know that some of us on this site are pro choice.


Educated by whom and according to what criteria?
Educated by the State, to realise that their actions have consequences.

[The Dagda]

1) How do we determine who is/isn't responsible enough to be allowed to be parents

2) By what right or authority do we propose to tell people that they can/can't have children

3) Supposing we come up with valid answers for the points 1 & 2, why should the answer to irresponsible parents be sterilisation and infanticide?
Surely adoption solves the problem too without having to take innocents lives?
Adoption is a possibility for some, but I would guess that the number of people wishing to adopt is far less than the number of unwanted or uncared for children born each year.

[JSE]

To let people know that some of us on this site are pro choice.When someone expresses a view but is unwilling to defend that view, then it shows up that view in a weak light.

Educated by the State, to realise that their actions have consequences.What gives you grounds for believing that the state is competent in this matter?
Everyone in some sense knows that things have consequences but in the heat of the moment . . .
On this view no one would ever get pissed because they know the consequence will be a horrible head

[The Dagda]

When someone expresses a view but is unwilling to defend that view, then it shows up that view in a weak light.
I have defended it.


What gives you grounds for believing that the state is competent in this matter?
They run the education system.

[JSE]

I have defended it.The views you put forward were refuted. In that you have done the Pro-life cause a great service.
After that you indicated that you no longer wanted to be involved in the discussion.

They run the education system.That is neither an argument for its competency in sex education or for education in general, its merely stating a fact.

[The Dagda]

The views you put forward were refuted. In that you have done the Pro-life cause a great service.
After that you indicated that you no longer wanted to be involved in the discussion.
They weren't refuted, you just have a different point of view. I support euthanasia, I believe abortion falls into this area.

That is neither an argument for its competency in sex education or for education in general, its merely stating a fact.
The government were voted in by the people, the dept of education is a government office, it's the responsibility of the state to educate the people. If the people don't feel they are competent then they can vote them out and let someone else in.

[JSE]

They weren't refuted, you just have a different point of view. I support euthanasia, I believe abortion falls into this area.Of course they were refuted. When an argument is refuted it is no longer tenable and it is no longer possible to hold it without being in a state of contradiction.


The government were voted in by the people, the dept of education is a government office, it's the responsibility of the state to educate the people. If the people don't feel they are competent then they can vote them out and let someone else in.The 'people' are hardly an authority on anything.

[The Dagda]

Of course they were refuted.
What have you refuted ?


The 'people' are hardly an authority on anything.
That's the way things are.

[JSE]

What have you refuted ?Milo refuted the suggestion that pain had any relevance to the rights or wrongs of abortion. I refuted the attempt to identify withdrawal of life sustaining machinery from the terminally ill with abortion. Btw, withdrawing such treatment is not euthanasia.

That's the way things are.So? It doesn't make it either true or right.

[The Dagda]

Milo refuted the suggestion that pain had any relevance to the rights or wrongs of abortion.
You described a baby being torn apart or being burned to death in the womb, I presumed this was for the shock effect, I was just stating some research I read.

I refuted the attempt to identify withdrawal of life sustaining machinery from the terminally ill with abortion. Btw, withdrawing such treatment is not euthanasia.
I see no significant difference.

[JSE]

You described a baby being torn apart or being burned to death in the womb, I presumed this was for the shock effect, I was just stating some research I read.No, this is what I said:

Withdrawing a device and letting nature take its course is completely different from sticking a pair forceps into a womb and tearing a baby apart piece by pieceTo try and equate letting nature takes its course and violently killing is patently false. Then you brought in the pain canard.

The gory details I included because this is a public forum and not every one reading knows what an abortion actually involves. The abortionists like to shroud it all in neutral langauge like 'termination' and 'tissue' and they never never release photos of the results.

I see no significant difference.There are three things here.
Abortion
Euthanasia
Letting nature takes its course.
Abortion and euthanasia both involve killing, one rather violently the other with lethal injection (two in the Netherlands). Letting nature takes its course does not.

[Milesian]

Adoption is a possibility for some, but I would guess that the number of people wishing to adopt is far less than the number of unwanted or uncared for children born each year.

Contrary to the popular image given out, that turns out not to be the case.
In fact, only a minority of those cases does the mother opt for abortion:-


In one study, 75% to 85% of pregnant rape victims chose against abortion.34 They do so because they feel abortion is wrong, that their child's life may have some special meaning, that to answer one evil with another is repulsive and that they can perhaps overcome the selfishness of the violation by generosity, courage, strength, self-sacrifice and honor.35

In the case of incest, the victims rarely voluntarily agree to abortion.36 It is often the perpetrator who pushes the most strongly for abortion to avoid exposure, while the victim sees the birth as a certain way to stop the pathological relationship. She also sees in having a baby the hope of a loving relationship, unlike the exploitative one in which she has been trapped.37

http://irish-nationalism.net/showpost.php?p=12124&postcount=4

[The Dagda]

Contrary to the popular image given out, that turns out not to be the case.
In fact, only a minority of those cases does the mother opt for abortion:-



http://irish-nationalism.net/showpost.php?p=12124&postcount=4
Wheather the mother opts to have her child aborted or adopted is not the issue, the fact remains that someone who is mentally unstable should not be allowed to raise a child, victims of rape or incest fall into this category imo, I don't believe there's enough people wantint to adopt to cover the number of unwanted or uncared for children.

[The Dagda]

No, this is what I said:
To try and equate letting nature takes its course and violently killing is patently false. Then you brought in the pain canard.

The gory details I included because this is a public forum and not every one reading knows what an abortion actually involves.
The end result is the same, I presume Doctors use the most efficient method.

[West]

The end result is the same, I presume Doctors use the most efficient method.
The end result of old age is the same as brutally killing someone. Doesn't make brutally killing someone acceptable though does it..?

[The Dagda]

The end result of old age is the same as brutally killing someone. Doesn't make brutally killing someone acceptable though does it..?
How is that the same as what's being discussed here ?

[West]

How is that the same as what's being discussed here ?
The only difference, here, is that the butchery is taking place in the womb..

[The Dagda]

The only difference, here, is that the butchery is taking place in the womb..
No, the difference is that somebody, eg the mother, gives her permission to have the pregnancy terminated for a reason.

[West]

No, the difference is that somebody, eg the mother, gives her permission to have the pregnancy terminated for a reason.
So its acceptable that a mother should be permitted to kill her baby?

Only a truly degenerate society would sanction killing off the next generation..

[The Dagda]

So its acceptable that a mother should be permitted to kill her baby?

Only a truly degenerate society would sanction killing off the next generation..
It's not a baby, it's a fetus and I believe there are reasons to do so.

That's the beauty of pro choice, those of you who don't want to do it don't have to.

[West]

It's not a baby, it's a fetus and I believe there are reasons to do so.

That's the beauty of pro choice, those of you who don't want to do it don't have to.
There is no difference between a baby & a foetus except for the technical difference that one is outside the womb..

That's the beauty of pro choice, those of you who don't want to do it don't have to.
Its disgusting to be murdering the next generation simply because they are inconvenient..

[JSE]

How is that the same as what's being discussed here ?You said it yourself. The end result - death - is the same, whether it be by abortion, euthanasia, old age, or an accident or illness. You're suggesting that because the end result is the same, the means or manner of death are irrelevant. You can't seriously maintain such a line of reasoning.

[JSE]

That's the beauty of pro choice, those of you who don't want to do it don't have to.Let's change one term here to bring out the inherent absurdity of that statement:
"That's the beauty of stealing, those who don't want to do it don't have to do it."

[Milesian]

It's not a baby, it's a fetus and I believe there are reasons to do so.
Foetus, baby, toddler, infant, child, adolescent, adult, pensioner.....which ones are ok to kill and which ones aren't? :shrug


That's the beauty of pro choice, those of you who don't want to do it don't have to.

That's scant consolation to the countless millions of murdered children, suicidal or psychologically damaged mothers, grieving fathers and broken families out there.

I think we should clear up one thing at least - "Pro-Choice" is one name which I would not apply to it.

What choice is it giving? The choice that a woman can let her child live or butcher it? But it doesn't give the child, who's life is hanging in the balance, any choice in the matter.

Pro-Life is at least as much Pro-Choice because it gives the baby the opportunity to live and then make countless choices about the life that lies ahead of it.

The opposite of Pro-Life is not Pro-Choice, it is Pro-Death.
Little wonder they had to use a euphemism.
The abortion industry couldn't survive without it's arsenal of sophistic arguments, false statistics, lies and euphemisms.

[JSE]

I can't help thinking of St Paul when the word 'choice' is thrown up in modern culture. Advertising is saturated with it, liberal democracy promotes it, and supermarkets stock 20 different brands of washing powder, all produced by the same two megacorporations. But Paul would have said there are only two things to choose from - the new dispensation of the resurrection* or the law of the flesh - one is life and the other is death. Modern consumer culture is nothing but the rule of death because it denies the spirit. We are living in a necrophile culture so its hardly surprising that something like abortion can be seen as normal. In fact everything that liberalism and consumerism offers, from its vast range of baubbles and coloured beads to "lifestyles" can be summed up in one word: death.



*whether we believe in it as a real event or as symbolic.

[The Dagda]

You said it yourself. The end result - death - is the same, whether it be by abortion, euthanasia, old age, or an accident or illness. You're suggesting that because the end result is the same, the means or manner of death are irrelevant.
It all depends why the termination takes place.

[The Dagda]

Let's change one term here to bring out the inherent absurdity of that statement:
"That's the beauty of stealing, those who don't want to do it don't have to do it."
Stealing is against the law.

[JSE]

Stealing is against the law.So is abortion.

[JSE]

It all depends why the termination takes place.But now you are narrowing your argument, before you said you could see no difference between abortion, euthanasia, and letting nature take its course. Now you are restricting things to abortion. What gives?

[The Dagda]

So is abortion.
In Ireland it is, but Irish women in the main go to England where abortion is legal, it's not against the law for Irish women to do this.



But now you are narrowing your argument, before you said you could see no difference between abortion, euthanasia, and letting nature take its course. Now you are restricting things to abortion. What gives?
No I didn't, I said I could see no difference between abortion and euthanasia.

[JSE]

In Ireland it is, but Irish women in the main go to England where abortion is legal, it's not against the law for Irish women to do this.I'll have to get back to this point later.


No I didn't, I said I could see no difference between abortion and euthanasia.Not quite:
http://irish-nationalism.net/showpost.php?p=62569&postcount=65
You were trying to equate withdrawal of treatment with euthanasia, which is false.

[The Dagda]

Not quite:
You were trying to equate withdrawal of treatment with euthanasia, which is false.
I believe it's not false, people (family members) are left with the same choice.

[JSE]

I believe it's not false, people (family members) are left with the same choice.Moral theolgians and philosophers and all the medical councils of the world all draw a clear distinction between withdrawing treatment and letting nature take its course and actively intervening to end someone's life, quite apart form whether or not one belives that euthanasia is morally permissible or not. The two are simply different kinds of act. Therefore it is false to equate the two.

Now, our debate here is about the moral evaluation of such acts. The consensus here and in most countries is that one is morally permissible under certain defined conditions, the other is not.

[The Dagda]

Moral theolgians and philosophers and all the medical councils of the world all draw a clear distinction between withdrawing treatment and letting nature take its course and actively intervening to end someone's life, quite apart form whether or not one belives that euthanasia is morally permissible or not. The two are simply different kinds of act. Therefore it is false to equate the two.
I never said that "withdrawing treatment and letting nature take it's course and actively intervening to end someones life" were the same. What I said was that I view "actively intervening to end someones life" and abortion as the same.


Now, our debate here is about the moral evaluation of such acts. The consensus here and in most countries is that one is morally permissible under certain defined conditions, the other is not.
Over six thousand Irish women travel abroad for an abortion each year, with the number rising each year, they have made a "moral evaluation" and decided to go ahead with the termination. I don't have figures for the number of women who make a "moral evaluation" and choose to have their children, but the fact that people have to make this decision and the rising numbers involved indicates that abortion is here to stay until the reasons for it are dealth with.

[JSE]

I never said that "withdrawing treatment and letting nature take it's course and actively intervening to end someones life" were the same. What I said was that I view "actively intervening to end someones life" and abortion as the same.Let me refresh your memory as to what you have said so far:

I have a friend with an elderly mother who has just been told she has cancer, she has asked her son to give his permission to turn off her life support machine should the situation arise, this is euthanasia. Children cannot make decisions like that for themselves so it's up to the parent to decide whether their childs life support machine is turned off in a similar circumstance. I can't see how this is morally different from abortion.This is where you intially equate letting nature take its course with euthanasia -
http://irish-nationalism.net/showpost.php?p=62548&postcount=49

To which I replied in the following post: "Are you sure you can't see the difference?
Now, withdrawing treatment is not euthanasia.

Withdrawing a device and letting nature take its course is completely different from sticking a pair forceps into a womb . . ."
A question which you did not answer, instead you switched to talking about whether or not the foetus can feel pain.
http://irish-nationalism.net/showpost.php?p=62550&postcount=51

Then later on, in response to my comment:"I refuted the attempt to identify withdrawal of life sustaining machinery from the terminally ill with abortion. Btw, withdrawing such treatment is not euthanasia."
you replied: " I see no significant difference."
http://irish-nationalism.net/showpost.php?p=62569&postcount=65

You equated letting nature take its course with euthanasia and then morally equated both of these actions to abortion.

So, to reiterate for the purposes of clarification:

1.) Withdrawing treatment from the terminally ill is not euthanasia.

2.) Euthanasia is an act of killing performed by a doctor. In the Netherlands it is done by lethal injection. The "patient" does not even have to be terminally ill.

3.) Abortion is killing, killing a foetus (the name for a stage in human life) in the womb.

These are the facts. The moral evaluation of these acts is another question.

1. is not problematic where it is letting nature take its course in the case of the terminally ill. This does not include people in a Persistent Vegitative State (PVS).

2. and 3. are problematic because they involve acts of killing for which there must be solid justifcation. This is why, for example, Just War Theory is so important, or in law, the concept of Justifiable Homocide which is the verdict entered in self-defence cases in law. This legal concept merely represents a recognition that human beings have the moral right to defend themselves even as far as where it may involve the taking of life.

So in any case of killing, unless justification can be clearly and unambiguously demonstrated - just war or self-defence etc - an act of killing is murder.

The defenders of abortion know all this. They know that it is morally evil to kill the innocent. This is why they have to deny the humanity of the foetus, for the moment they admit that, they would have to condemn abortion. Instead, they shroud their speech in euphemistic language like "termination", "procedure" and "tissue" and quibble over at what precise moment the foetus "becomes human", as if at one minute past midnight of the last day of the 28th week there is this sudden transformation from "tissue" to "human." Having lost that argument, the foetological argument, they have now been driven to the pain argument - which you mentioned earlier, and which Milo refuted.

All in all, the pro-abortion argument has been thoroughly defeated, logically, medically, morally. That it is still legal in various countries testifies to some deep malaise, what I called earlier a 'culture of death'.


Over six thousand Irish women travel abroad for an abortion each year, with the number rising each year, they have made a "moral evaluation" and decided to go ahead with the termination. I don't have figures for the number of women who make a "moral evaluation" and choose to have their children, but the fact that people have to make this decision and the rising numbers involved indicates that abortion is here to stay until the reasons for it are dealth with.A few things need to be said.
These figures come from the pro-abortion lobby and so cannot be trusted. Even if they were true: so what? You say these women have made a "moral evaluation". They have made no such thing. They are not moral authorities so they are not competent to make such determinations. The moral question is: "is abortion as such right or wrong" not "should I have one." The second question could only be posed if the answer to the first was; yes, it is permissible.

Secondly, you might as well be citing the murder statistics as stating how many women might be going to Britain. I mean, its no different from saying, "because there are X number of murders per year, we should therefore acknowledge this situation and legalise murder."

[The Dagda]

I have a friend with an elderly mother who has just been told she has cancer, she has asked her son to give his permission to turn off her life support machine should the situation arise, this is euthanasia. Children cannot make decisions like that for themselves so it's up to the parent to decide whether their childs life support machine is turned off in a similar circumstance. I can't see how this is morally different from abortion.
I was referring to the decision, to end a life, which has to be made by someone else other than the person whose life is being ended. In that I see no difference.

[Celtlass]

I think that's always a fact that is overlooked in the whole abortion debate, the lack of responsibilty on the part of the expectant mothers in getting themselves pregnant in the first place.

The last I heard, a woman can't just get herself pregnant.

[The Seamus]

The last I heard, a woman can't just get herself pregnant.

We need to do what the Apaches did: tell the young men that women have teeth in there and bite.

[JSE]

The last I heard, a woman can't just get herself pregnant.I'm glad someone brought this up finally. Surely there would be less abortions if men behaved more decently towards the women who become pregnant. I think quite a few men are instrumental in pushing women down the abortion road.

[The Seamus]

I'm glad someone brought this up finally. Surely there would be less abortions if men behaved more decently towards the women who become pregnant. I think quite a few men are instrumental in pushing women down the abortion road.

Yes in the intial stages of women's liberation it was men being instrumental in the abortion process. Later, however, many women have teken it upon themselves to have the abortion, leaving some men who were willing to raise the child in a world of shit. And this has been some of the reason why men like Paul Hill kill these doctors, as a sort of personal vedetta.

Funny how alot of men are now coming to their senses as the women lose theirs. It's a conspiracy planned out I tell you!

[Milesian]

The last I heard, a woman can't just get herself pregnant.

Absolutely right, but despite being an obvious truism this statement worries me when a lot of women say it. I always aknowledge it and go into some detail about men having responsibility in the whole affair (there surely are blackguards and rogues out there who push a reluctant partner into it), but when I return to the women's role again (and it really is a little more important as the women is the carrier and ultimate custodian of the child) then I tend to get that statement thrown back again and again, as if I somehow rejected it first time.

Yes, men must shoulder blame. But the sexual revolution set off a chain of events in which men and women became mutually antagonistic to each other.
Both were encouraged to be promiscous. A woman loses trust in a man who is a womaniser. A man loses respect in a women who behaves in a similar fashion. The bond of matrimony and respect is severed. The men feel no need to look after the child of a flousy knowing there is a good chance it might not be theirs anyway. Anyway, he is too busy sleeping around with a bountiful supply of easy women. The women herself has probably only started getting worried about committment because she got pregnant and would have carried on being promiscous if it had not been for that. The woman feels men are worthless. Men feel women are worthless. Neither wants each other's offspring. Step in the abortion industry.

So yes, both men and women are very much at fault for their attitudes and behaviour. But the problem lies with this fact - women must bear the child for 9 months and be their constant guardians and protectors.
Unfair perhaps, and perhaps Mother Nature is a twisted old misogynist for "inflicting" this duty on women, but that's the way it is I'm afraid.
A man may pressure a woman into an abortion, but the man can't have the abortion. Only the woman can have the abortion. she has the final say.
Due to that fact, she must bear the greatest responsibility (albeit not sole responsibility). But the lion's share is hers......not because of sexist attempts to put the onus on women, but because nature & biology itself have put that burden on them.

[Celtlass]

Absolutely right, but despite being an obvious truism this statement worries me when a lot of women say it. I always aknowledge it and go into some detail about men having responsibility in the whole affair (there surely are blackguards and rogues out there who push a reluctant partner into it), but when I return to the women's role again (and it really is a little more important as the women is the carrier and ultimate custodian of the child) then I tend to get that statement thrown back again and again, as if I somehow rejected it first time.

Yes, men must shoulder blame. But the sexual revolution set off a chain of events in which men and women became mutually antagonistic to each other.
Both were encouraged to be promiscous. A woman loses trust in a man who is a womaniser. A man loses respect in a women who behaves in a similar fashion. The bond of matrimony and respect is severed. The men feel no need to look after the child of a flousy knowing there is a good chance it might not be theirs anyway. Anyway, he is too busy sleeping around with a bountiful supply of easy women. The women herself has probably only started getting worried about committment because she got pregnant and would have carried on being promiscous if it had not been for that. The woman feels men are worthless. Men feel women are worthless. Neither wants each other's offspring. Step in the abortion industry.

So yes, both men and women are very much at fault for their attitudes and behaviour. But the problem lies with this fact - women must bear the child for 9 months and be their constant guardians and protectors.
Unfair perhaps, and perhaps Mother Nature is a twisted old misogynist for "inflicting" this duty on women, but that's the way it is I'm afraid.
A man may pressure a woman into an abortion, but the man can't have the abortion. Only the woman can have the abortion. she has the final say.
Due to that fact, she must bear the greatest responsibility (albeit not sole responsibility). But the lion's share is hers......not because of sexist attempts to put the onus on women, but because nature & biology itself have put that burden on them.

I agree only to a point. Promiscuity is a problem and the bottom line is...
You can't turn a whore into a housewife and you can't turn a womanizer into a faithful husband. I don't blame anyone for not wanting to stick with someone like that or believing in them. My problem lies with the womanizers who run around telling everything in a skirt that he loves them then some naive woman believes it,see's the wedding,white picket fence etc. etc. She turns out pregnant and he's out the door saying get rid of it and on to the next one. Guys like that avoid support payments,don't even bother to acknowledge they have children and they get away with it. A woman on her own like that thinks desperate thoughts,put yourselves mentally in that position. Men should be judged just as harshly for their part.

[JSE]

This kind of thing was around long before the so-called sexual revolution, it was just concealed, this is what the then Bishop of Cork really meant when he said "there was no sex in Ireland before television."

In the old days if you became pregnant, then you were put behind the high walls of a Magdelene Laundry or similar institutions (there was one or two in nearly every county). The women were put to work in a variety of ways some of which were quite lucrative to the Orders running the places, until they were well into pregancy. After the birth, they would be put back to work until such time as the child was adopted. That could take some time and if they were still left on the shelf they were then fostered out or sent on to an orphanage. Orphanages in Ireland were hell-holes which amounted to a regime of punishment inflicted on the child, for what?

The fathers never had to acknowledge or put their hand in their pockets or scrub floors, pull turnips from frozen fields, or the ultimate agony - give up their child never to be seen again. This would often happen up to two years of age.

The introduction of the Unmarried Mother's Allowance finally put an end to all this, and support orders have gone some way to bind wayward boys who think they are men to their responsibilities.

But what is absolutely false is to believe that single motherhood is a new phenomenon, its not. And the numbers have been quite high. For the period of 1952 - the number of adoption orders has been over 42,000. To this you would have to add the figures for fostering and orphanages etc to get the true scale of the situation. These figures relate for the most part to the period up to and around the late 70's early 80's when the stigma started to lift as the effects of single mother's allowance worked through. There are virtually no domestic adoptions anymore.

[The Seamus]

Intresting. So in Ireland shotgun weddings were virtually no existent? Which mean the men were not held accountable by other men and their mother's opinion had not sway over womanizers.

I can see now why Barry (an Irish immigrant I knew in Kansas) said you kept the girls on a leash.

[JSE]

Intresting. So in Ireland shotgun weddings were virtually no existent? Which mean the men were not held accountable by other men and their mother's opinion had not sway over womanizers.

I can see now why Barry (an Irish immigrant I knew in Kansas) said you kept the girls on a leash.Such marriages did happen but often the women would be whisked off to the nuns before the shotgun could be loaded, so to speak.

[green nationalist]

hmm, why cant I get on to page 11 of this thread?

[The Dagda]

hmm, why cant I get on to page 11 of this thread?
Congratulations ! :clap

[green nationalist]

Ha ha. yeah:P

[Scáthach]

Now if only those muck would dedicate their powers to the abortionists instead of hamster owners we'd be in business..

Both, preferably.

[The Seamus]

WTF is going on here?