Trump is a regular corduroy pillow — always making headlines.
Yesterday he did it by manufacturing part of his pro-life position on the spot under questioning from Chris Matthews. Under pressure, he said that there would have to be “some form” of punishment for a woman who procured an abortion. Confident of his ability to wing it on anything, he tried it out here and it did not work out well for him.
There are two things going on here. One is the politics and rhetoric of the thing, and what happened here seems pretty apparent. Trump’s conversion to “pro-life” principles happened fairly recently, and his commitment to pro-choice views before that was decided and extreme. From a distance, the conversion looks pretty opportunistic (he wanted to run as a Republican and knew that the pro-choice thing was a non-starter). This fiasco makes it look even more that way. He has inhabited a pro-choice world for a long time, and had simply accepted the standard caricatures of pro-lifers by the pro-abort crowd. And then, when he adopted the pro-life position (for political convenience), he adopted what he thought it was. In his comments, he mentioned how this was the position of a number of conservatives, thus revealing that he has no idea what he is talking about.
After everybody went up in a sheet of flame over his remarks, a clarifying comment was released by the campaign. The “clarification,” for those interested in such things, was a complete reversal of what he had said earlier.
So the problem with his remarks is that this is not the pro-life position. This is not what pro-lifers are proposing in their legislation. “Punishing the women” is not what the movement is about.
But here is the second thing. Suppose you are in a conversation with a thoughtful advocate of abortion. Suppose he is not a rabid agitator, and is not trying to slander anyone. He is willing to have an intelligent conversation with you. Suppose further he says something like, “Yes, I know that you do not want to punish the mothers. What I don’t understand, given all the rhetoric about ‘abortion is murder,’ is why you don’t want the mothers to face some consequences. Doesn’t your refusal to say what Trump just said undercut what you are saying abortion actually is? Murder is murder, right?”
This is a subject that does need to be addressed carefully — the objection has argumentative weight, in other words. Here is a brief answer, with a promise of more to come.
We are dealing with millions of cases. It is the view of politically active pro-lifers that the penalties should fall on those who know what they are doing. Medically trained doctors know exactly what they are doing. The ghouls at Planned Parenthood know exactly what they have been selling.
And the view about the mothers, taken as a class, is that they have been fraudulently manipulated into a form of negligent manslaughter. That kind of problem is best answered with information — ultrasounds and more. This is why pro-lifers for decades have offered support, information, care, and medical services to mothers. The laws have been aimed at doctors who were after the blood money. And in the main, this has been a very effective and reasonable distinction.
Now of course you will have some cases where the mothers know just as much as the abortionists do. Say that an abortionist gets pregnant herself, and then procures a late term abortion. It would make no sense to maintain that she was not guilty of anything because “motherhood.” But that kind of rare case is not what the political battle is over.
The political battle is over the merchants of blood, the women they lie to, and the children they kill.
Come on, you can’t believe that mist woman are that ignorant! Of coarse we can’t legally convict the mothers of murder, yet. It is
legal to kill your baby in America, this “great Christian Nation”, but when the law is changed and it will be, then we must assuredly convict the mothers for murder.
Pastor, if you’re going to (rightly) say that there’s no ontological difference between a baby in the womb and a baby out of the womb, and if you’re going to (rightly) affirm the responsibility of governments to punish wrongdoers, and you’re going to (rightly) affirm the equality of Divine image-bearers before the law, you’re going to have to affirm the punishing of women who hire the murder of their children.
I submit we should do so heartily.
But I must add this could not be done overnight, thee loaf of bread has not sufficiently been Christianized, but in time that should be our goal, honoring the sixth commandment.
Just a suggestion, could our posts be made editable ?
Say that an abortionist gets pregnant herself I have a feeling that a LOT of women seeking abortions know or at least suspect that what they’re doing is wrong. Isn’t that also part of The pro-life position? “I knew it didn’t feel right. I knew deep down it was wrong, but I did it anyway.” Also, remember that picture of the young woman wearing the “I had an abortion” t-shirt, while touching the belly of her very pregnant friend? And the view about the mothers, taken as a class, is that they have been fraudulently manipulated into a form of… Read more »
That is interesting. While doing some research I read that many female abortionists (and their assistants) can’t handle doing abortions while they are pregnant. That to me suggests an appalling amount of guilty knowledge.
It’s difficult for me to believe that the number of women who “know what they are doing” is as low as you seem to be implying. I’ll grant that the full weight of the act may not be as heavy on them as it would be if the culture was different (this would explain why so many women will not go through with it once they see an ultrasound). However, at the end of the day, that woman is walking into a clinic and voluntarily having the procedure done. They know they are pregnant before they walk in, and they… Read more »
Generally speaking, women aren’t stupid. Also, the government bears the sword to inflict terror on evildoers. (Romans 13). The Proverb says, “Drive out a mocker, and the simple learn prudence.” A great way to educate women is to make some just laws, and enforce those laws with the maximum punishment under the law. To say that the mother is merely guilty of manslaughter and not murder would require one to argue that the mother in question did not understand what was going on. I suppose in certain cases, that could be argued in a court of law. Generally speaking though,… Read more »
Furthermore, Donald Trump never reversed his position. The media is saying he couldn’t handle the pressure, and issued a retraction. If you look at the statement he put out three hours later, what he said was, “if _________ and _________, or _________, bad things would happen to doctors and not “a woman”. In that hypothetical not-gonna-happen scenario involving Congress, a woman and her baby would be victims. And oh yeah, MY POSITION HAS NOT CHANGED.”
I would review your first line….
Humans are naturally stupid
quit the female worship
By “not stupid” in this context, I mean that generally speaking women are not uninformed or lacking intellectual intelligence. In other words, they are culpable. They can’t (and they are not) standing behind, “I didn’t know that an abortion would kill my baby.”
I’m certainly not worshipping women.
“What we would like is for after-birth abortion to be outlawed, as it used to be. But if it is outlawed, and a mother still has her 6 month old daughter killed, mom shouldn’t face any criminal charges, because she didn’t understand.” <– Will this be the pro-life position in 40 years?
If abortion was against the law then it would have to come with some punitive action, like any law. But let’s not forget “Dad.” He should pay his fair share as well.
in our country, dad does not legally have a voice in whether the Child lives or dies. The mother’s decision is final. Where the situation different, one could make him pay. Where the state demands his wishes are unheard, even If he wants the child alive, it hardly seems plausible.
I have to admit to being surprised at this “moderate” view coming from Doug. And a little disappointed.
I wonder how things would go if it could be reasonably proven that most women who get abortions know exactly what is happening (that the life of a human whom they are supposed to be protecting and nurturing is being snuffed out at their whim).
I’m of the position that the misinformation out there is not aimed at deception of the unwary but rather to attempt to ease the conscience…
What exactly do you see as “moderate” in what Pastor Wilson is saying here???
That the women (I cannot bring myself to call them “mothers” for they are anything but that) are somehow less guilty than the abortionists. That the one who hired the hitman is not as responsible for the murder as the hitman himself…
I do get that he hedges his position by stating his belief that most women are ignorant of what is really happening, but I think he knows better than that. Especially based off prior blogs on abortion that he has written.
Brandon, they are mothers,
with a dead child.
Who they paid someone to kill!
Calling them mothers is not an compliment, it is an indictment. So call them mothers, for that is what they are.
Valid point.
For a slightly different take on the subject…the reality is that barring the miraculous, there is no chance that the United States congress or State legislatures will ever pass any law which imposes penalties upon the women. It just isn’t going to happen, even in red states. However, there is a possibility that somewhere, way down the road, legislation could be passed which will ban abortion and hold doctors to account. Let’s remember that the goal is to save children’s lives. I’m perfectly willing to do that which will save the lives of children, and allow God to judge the… Read more »
aslannn, Perhaps unwittingly, I believe you have just nailed what is the true weakness of many “pro-life” positions. Our primary goal should never have been “to save children’s lives”. While no one will argue that not to be a very laudable goal, the position belies a self-centered, emotional response to the greater problem, which is a denial of justice. Our focus should have been, all along, doing right in the eyes of the Judge of the world, Who clearly establishes the heinousness of unborn child murder in His infallible Word. When viewed in its proper light, the issue of whether… Read more »
Are the abortionists and nurses at PP and elsewhere still using the old “clump of cells” type of explanation? I’ve heard that the pro-abortion argument had somewhat changed from “it’s not a baby”, to more of “it’s a baby, but your rights matter more”. But maybe this hasn’t bubbled up to the clinics yet, and maybe it never will.
I think they push the ‘clump of cells’ for as long as possible then switch to your rights matter more, at least that’s how pro-abortion rhetoric goes.
The answer to that question by anyone who values innocent life is: Yes, there should always be punishment for the taking of innocent life, no matter who the perpetrator is. Do we believe in “with liberty and justice for all,” or just for those who manage to make it down the birth canal?
No, no, no! It’s that persons possessing birth canals are always guiltless, no matter what they do or whom they injure.
I need to echo all the statements people have made regarding the fact that most women know what they’re getting into when they get an abortion–at least deep down. Even if they believe that life doesn’t begin at conception, they know there’s something wrong about it.
The question then becomes how should we punish these women?
“So the problem with his remarks is that this is not the pro-life position. This is not what pro-lifers are proposing in their legislation. “Punishing the women” is not what the movement is about.”
Then I thank God that I’m not a “pro-lifer”, but rather an anti-abortionist.
“If we were to outlaw abortion….” And there’s the rub. Very loud and very strident voices have been saying for fifty years that it’s not a life there in the womb. People society trusted–actual, respected doctors and scientists have said this. Yes, there were those who stood on the word of the Lord and called it murder all along, but the people in power did not believe them or listen to them. They did not want to believe them. But now, what if some of them, after they have seen the ultrasounds and they have seen the evil of Planned… Read more »
And this will continue to be the media “gotcha” question for the 2016 election cycle, so Pastor Wilson is wise to get us all to start thinking about the right answer.
What if Trump had answered, “If we were to outlaw abortion I would spend the rest of my life praising God every day for the most astounding, incredible miracle I could ever imagine because this would only happen as a result of awakening and repentance across the whole nation. It would be a time to drop the stones we hold against each other. It would be a time to say that we no longer condemn each other. It would be a time to go forward and sin no more. So, no, I would not go back and retroactively punish people… Read more »
This type of answer is what Christians need to get better at delivering, especially in the media. It upends and pierces through the entire secular paradigm of the assailant. It is a grateful answer, and soaks in God’s imminent, historical, and redemptive actions.
Thank you, katecho. It does all those things because it did not come from me. It took me 15 minutes to write that little paragraph because all of us have hearts with a worldly default setting. It took some time looking down and writing in the sand.
> So, no, I would not go back and retroactively punish people for what was legal at the time.
I don’t remember that being implicit in the question that Trump was asked, and it sure doesn’t seem to be implicit in the position of Trump that Wilson objected to in this post. So is yours just a straw man argument?
My response began with the words “What if.”
And if you seem to see straw men everywhere you look, maybe it’s time to step off the yellow brick road.
“What if Trump had answered” is how your response began. You didn’t say, “What if Trump had been asked…” It makes no sense to say, “What if Trump had answered, ‘…no, I would not go back and retroactively…'” unless the question had anything to do with going back and retroactively…, which it didn’t.
Maybe you shouldn’t let that tin can slip so far down over your eyes and you could see that straw man.
ok
“And the view about the mothers, taken as a class, is that they have been fraudulently manipulated into a form of negligent manslaughter. That kind of problem is best answered with information — ultrasounds and more.” This “class” view ought to be rejected. Just as the view that natural man, given simply enough evidence relating to God’s existence and His divine nature, will, in his own strength, weigh the evidence and come to the “reasonable” conclusion. Man rejects God through a vast mechanism of self deception, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Mothers kills their children, in part, by suppressing the… Read more »
Still think I’m wrong about Wilson being compromised by leftism? Either women have moral agency or they don’t.
(edit: On reflection there’s more nuance to it than that, but any discussion of it has to start with reading Numbers 30.)
My esteem for the man certainly has gone down a few notches over the past few months. He is still good on some of the practical matters such as Christian child rearing though.
Nearly everyone is compromised by leftism.
I see your Numbers 30 and raise you a Deuteronomy 25:11-12.
Certainly — and in the Numbers passage widowed and divorced women take responsibility for themselves. So there’s multiple dimensions to consider.
You’re absolutely right about everything you said. I was intending to direct that at those who would use your Num 30 reference to pry out some leeway.
A woman would get her hand cut off–mercilessly–for grabbing another man’s genitals in the attempt to aid her husband in the case of a fight, but we can make some room for the victims of abortion–you know, the woman who just didn’t know any better.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/trackers/2016-03-31/carly-fiorina-says-donald-trump-abortion-remarks-outrageous Look, it is simple. If you call yourself pro-life, that should imply that you are in favor of laws criminalizing abortion and affirming the rights of the unborn. And if those laws are put into place, and then a woman walks into an abortion clinic and requests an abortion, she is culpable. To say that lawbreakers should not be punished in this situation is either to (a) expose oneself as pro-choice or (b) expose oneself as lawless. All who break the law should be punished. So, Trump accidentally got something right. The left pounced on him for it. He… Read more »
This is the one time when Donald Trump said something inflammatory and has been right! This is the one time that he SHOULD double down on his own rhetoric!
The political wing of the “pro-life” movement really showed what they are made of. #cuckservative is too kind a word for the cowardice of these men.
It should be illegal.
The s.c. court case and its penumbras are b.s.
A federalized solution (state by state) is acceptable to me.
The woman should be punished.
The doctor should be punished.
None said that. Pathetic, absolutely freaking pathetic, spineless, mewling lukewarm gutless emasculated, spew.
It bears being mentioned that Trump never even reversed his position. Or, if he has, he must’ve done so very, very recently, seeing as the statement he put out yesterday was “if _________ and _________, or _________, bad things would happen to doctors and not “a woman”. In that hypothetical not-gonna-happen scenario involving Congress, a woman and her baby would be victims. And oh yeah, MY POSITION HAS NOT CHANGED.”
That’s not a reversal; that’s a reaffirmation. Pro-lifers are cowards and wimps when they’re not liars.
That’s a lie. Trump did not reverse his position in any way, shape or form by issuing the statement he did. The statement he put out three hours later was “if _________ and _________, or _________, bad things would happen to doctors and not “a woman”. In that hypothetical not-gonna-happen
scenario involving Congress, a woman and her baby would be victims. And oh yeah, MY POSITION HAS NOT CHANGED.”
You morons should be rallying around the God Emperor, but instead throw him to the wolves so as to not appear racist.
I am thoroughly confused by your logic here, Pastor. Should the 19th-century criminalization of the slave trade only have penalized the auctioneers who sold slaves, not the plantation owners who sought to buy them? Couldn’t your logic about culpability be applied in the same way there? In this age, the two sides of the abortion debate have become so polarized that I highly doubt any woman can walk into an abortion clinic and not have at least some idea of what she’s actually doing. We would prosecute a woman who hires a hitman to kill her husband. The law would… Read more »
Alex, but if her mother or husband or boyfriend hired the hit man without her knowledge you would have a different situation. All Doug is saying is that you cannot treat the women as a ‘class’ as you can the abortionists. There were over a million abortions last year and in each and EVERY case one person knew what was being done, the abortionist and Lord willing we will soon see the day they are treated once again as the murderers they are. On the other side you have the women and some are confused, some proud of what they… Read more »
We should all be able to quickly come to agreement that there should not be a single mandatory punishment for women who abort their babies. We should also be able to come to quick agreement that at least some aborting women should be punished for murder in the first degree (particularly after the reversal of the abortion law has been widely publicized with a fixed starting date).
If slavery had come to a referendum, do you think people would have voted to ban it if it had imposed serious penalties on the slave owner? There is a question of pragmatism here that is even more compelling than logic.
Let’s start by acknowledging that the abortionists and women are morally culpable of murder (or manslaughter depending on how it is defined). The degree of culpability is probably in part related to knowledge. People should know that a unborn baby is a person. They may have been convinced otherwise. For some it is true ignorance, for others they want the baby to not be a person so they lie to themselves and then believe the lie. But to be eventually convinced of your own lies does not remove culpability. Doug’s take on the women may be partially true, though many… Read more »
Great comment, bethyada. First paragraph is super.
Right. I don’t think anyone is arguing for an ex post facto charging of people (doctors nor mothers) for abortions happening now. Nor is anyone calling for a Nuremburg style trial for those most responsible. It’s all about what will happen going forward AFTER abortion is outlawed.
After a law change and a clear campaign that notes that abortion is a form of murder, anyone performing an abortion is to be executed.
I don’t know about those obtaining them? Or about those who encourage them (husbands, partners, or even girlfriends sharing advice). I have thought about this previously and the problem of how do you prevent a women intent on getting an abortion.
Very few murderers ever come close to execution; in the US it is less than 2% of known murderers who are sentenced to death, and not all those actually get executed. I think that it is unlikely in most jurisdictions that a woman who procures an abortion would ever be charged with first degree murder. Even when abortion was illegal, women were not prosecuted. According to an article on Lifenews, “First, the almost uniform state policy before Roe was that abortion laws targeted abortionists, not women. Abortion laws targeted those who performed abortion, not women. In fact, the states expressly… Read more »
“Prevent a woman intent on getting an abortion.”
That may depend on why she’s intent on it.
For some of them, it might be as simple as providing places they can abandon their children into the care of those who would want to keep and raise them.
The moon must be in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligned with Mars. I have never been in such total agreement with a post from Pastor Wilson.
Well, the age of Aquarius certainly is throwing me off.
Doug, It appears to me that there is a bit of confusion in what you are saying over whether we are talking about the situation now, or the situation as it should be. For example, you say: “We are dealing with millions of cases. It is the view of politically active pro-lifers that the penalties should fall on those who know what they are doing.” Well no. No politically active pro-lifer could advocate prosecuting either the women or the ghouls for something that hitherto has not been classed as a criminal act. You simply can’t pass a law and then… Read more »
> You simply can’t pass a law and then prosecute people retroactively for something that wasn’t a crime when they did it. Not to disagree with your overall point, but would you object on those grounds to the war crimes charges against the perpetrators of the German holocaust? I don’t see why the most active perpetrators of the German holocaust should be treated differently from the most active perpetrators of the abortion holocaust. I’m just saying there are broadly accepted exceptions for prosecuting people for something that wasn’t a crime when they did it. Perhaps exceptions shouldn’t have been made… Read more »
Trump is a snake in wolf’s clothing.
You’re fat.
My diet starts Monday… promise.
Those who are “outraged” that the Pro-Life movement doesn’t condemn the woman who has had an abortion as a “murderer” and who suggest that the movement is cowardly in not prescribing punishments for the woman up front, may be well meaning, they may even be harmless as doves, but they are not wise as serpents. I’ve heard them argue that “King Jesus” calls it murder and that murder is a capital offense, both of which are more than a bit off but for the sake of argument, let’s play along. The slave trade was condemned by “King Jesus” in Exodus… Read more »
But the question was regarding the hypothetical IF abortion were made illegal what would happen to women who did so after it was illegal.
And people do get punished and imprisoned for enslaving people now that it is illegal.
But the hypothetical is a leading question and only a simpleton would go down that hole. Would it not have been a hypothetical for Wilberforce? Do you believe he never received any leading questions to derail his movement?
But that’s not what we’re talking about, Kirkwood. I’m not saying that the pro-life movement *lead* with punishment for the mother–I’m about it being consistent: If abortion *is* murder, then the perpetrators *are* murderers. I’d be more convinced by your line of argument if the pro-life side didn’t advocate *any* legal punishments for *anybody*, but they were only concerned about stopping abortion through convincing the doctors and the women to stop. However, that’s not what’s happening. They’re advocating stiff punishments for the guilty doctors and nurses, but the woman? DON’T BE A BEAST!! As far as Wilberforce, he could’ve been… Read more »
No one said anything about the pro-life movement prescribing punishments. Trump was talking about the civil authorities, not the pro-life movement. And let me get this straight….you’re against abortion, and think it should be illegal, but you also don’t think there should be any consequences (not even a fine) for killing a baby?
You’re an imbecile and a buffoon.
Thanks for your very Christian response. I know that reading comprehension isn’t a top priority but please try to read what I wrote and not what you imagined. I never said anything to the likes of your response. Not even close. But demagogue away, after all, I’m a buffoon.
You let the mothers off the hook, as though they were completely unaware that their fetus is a baby. In doing so, you reveal yourself to be a misogynist who thinks women are complete morons and in no way morally culpable for their actions.
It is not a question of letting mothers off the hook. It is a question of stopping the abortion carnage as quickly as we can. We all know that if SCOTUS kicks abortion back to the states, it is going to be extremely difficult in many jurisdictions to get the people to outlaw abortion. Do you think that adding provisions for punishing the woman would add to that difficulty? Polls show that Americans are fairly evenly split on first trimester abortions. We will not be successful in banning abortion without the votes of people who would cringe at the thought… Read more »
Well said. In an emergency situation, there is always a priority given to saving and securing lives before settling the question of judicial punishments. I don’t know of any exceptions to that order.
Blast women’s suffrage!
We all know that if SCOTUS kicks abortion back to the states, it is going to be extremely difficult in many jurisdictions to get the people to outlaw abortion. Do you think that adding provisions for punishing the woman would add to that difficulty? Polls show that Americans are fairly evenly split on first trimester abortions. We will not be successful in banning abortion without the votes of people who would cringe at the thought of penalizing women whom they often see as victims. Thank you for presenting the strategic argument. It does have merit. Some of what’s going on… Read more »
Christians should not be trying to stop abortion. Without Roe, 60 million more people would be alive today, along with the children that many of them would’ve had by now. Let’s say 75 million people. And almost all of them would be Democrats. You can barely win the White House now, but without Roe, you would’ve lost the White House, the House, and the Senate years ago. Permanently.
I have encountered this attitude before: abortion as a kind of political or ethnic cleansing. But isn’t it putting your desire to live in a particular kind of America ahead of Christian principles such as respect for innocent life?
When Jesus was leading his army of death angels through Egypt on the night of the Passover, slaughtering children by the hundreds of thousands, where was his respect for innocent life?
Well, one of the nice things about being Catholic is having a different take on stories like that. The Jesus I worship loves children–all children. I do not support abortion for any reason. But perhaps the most wicked reason I have encountered in support of abortion is that of reducing the number of poor children, minority children, children likely to become Democrats, and children born out of wedlock. That strikes me as more akin to Nazi eugenics than to Christian ethics.
Well, one of the nice things about being Catholic is having a different take on stories like that.
A different take?
Like what?
Well, one of the nice things about being Catholic is having a different take on stories like that.
A “different take”?
Like what?
It almost sounds like you’re saying “we Catholics don’t believe those parts of the Bible are true.”
Do Catholics not believe the Old Testament?
(And I’m not being facetious or argumentative. I know very little about Catholic beliefs.)
As I explained to Demo D above, I answered you flippantly and incorrectly. The Catholic church does believe in the Old and New Testament, but we are not usually literalists. For example, we are required to believe that God created the heavens and the earth, but we don’t need to believe it happened in six literal days. We must believe in a literal Adam and Eve, but we are free to believe they were created using an evolutionary process. I expect the Catholic church would want me to believe that God literally killed the first born Egyptian children, and I… Read more »
even if God literally ordered the deaths of the first born children, that could hardly justify us in killing children ourselves.
I’ve never advocated that anyone should kill their children, or anyone else’s children.
Please don’t imply that I did.
I strive to treat you with respect, and I wish you would do the same for me.
Again, I am sorry. I did not mean my comment to suggest that you advocate killing live children. Let me explain my train of thought, and I hope you will see that it was not as disrespectful or slanderous as it sounded. I believe that there is no real difference between killing the born and the unborn. For that reason, I see abortion is absolutely equivalent to Herod’s killing of the babies, or Pharaoh’s slaughter of the Hebrew babies. So, when you appeared to me to be defending abortion by referring to God’s willingness to smite the Egyptians’ first born,… Read more »
It’s the sudden turn from “principled conservatism” to “political expediency” that folks find off-putting, likely.
Well, I can see I set something off. I hope to follow up soon with a longer post on the reasoning here. And when that happens, you all will see there will not be an iota of leftism in it.
I’ve just never heard of an actual woman who got an abortion and didn’t actually know she was actually killing an actual baby.
I hear you, but killing can be different from murder. Certainly women who abort may very well be murdering, but I think stories like this: http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/07/mom-screams-for-clinic-to-call-911-when-baby-born-alive-after-abortion/ demonstrate instances of more of a manslaughter-esque mindset than a murder-esque one. Culpability to be sure, but at a different level. She did name the baby (which shows she knew it was a human life), but only had full knowledge of what she did after seeing her son, as you can see at the end of the story. Do you think it’s hard for those of us with a biblical worldview to know/remember the… Read more »
One source of persistent confusion relates to the different roles of family, church, and government. The article (I read the whole thing) presents an excellent view of how the church should see women as victims of abortion. But Chris Matthews’ question relates to government and law enforcement. And how the government addresses this is a very, very different thing. In its most basic form, he’s simply asking that, “If Z is illegal, should the law punish Z?” The inescapable answer is yes, and let us not dissemble about that. The answer I *wish* had been given is this: “Chris, this… Read more »
Exactly. The problem with Trump’s answer, is that he answered the question, instead of answering the issue.
Here’s something I wrote on this blog about a month ago on this general topic, from the perspective of enforcement: Sentencing for cases of abortion is an important part of the debate, and we need to understand a key principle. This type of crime is somewhat unique in that we have had several decades where the murder of the unborn has been culturally sanctioned (and profited upon) by the same office of civic authority that will need to prosecute it as murder, if abortion is ever overturned. As such, there is innocent blood on the hands of the civic magistrate.… Read more »
In a previous thread I have been strident in insisting upon the language and classification of the offense. My position is one of refusing to cede the language and true definition of the offense and therefore concede the battle-space. I do not call it pro-choice; I call it pro-murder. I do that to place the act in stark relief for what it is. I think that legally and judicially classifying as such provides a significant clarion call to all of the naive and foolish regarding the act that they might be tempted to perpetrate. I think that calling the act… Read more »
Agreed. We Christians, of all people, should be aware of the dangers of laws and cultural norms changing 180 degrees within a matter of minutes.
I guess I find this a bit puzzling because it assumes that *all* civil magistrates are discredited because *some* participate in the corruption of abortion. (Though it is not publicly apparent which are and which are not, I am sure there are magistrates who do not obtain or perform abortions, and abortion is not a state function, yet anyway.) I’m not sure this line of thinking holds through the biblical examples.
Dunsworth wrote: I guess I find this a bit puzzling because it assumes that *all* civil magistrates are discredited because *some* participate in the corruption of abortion. I admit that I was referring to the “civil magistrate” as one minister, with one sword of office, in the same manner that Romans 13 does. Of course I have and do recognize the principle of lesser magistrates, and their representative power (and duty) to disregard unjust laws. In the case of abortion, if there had been some lesser magistrate, who, in defiance of the Supreme Court, and in defense of the unborn,… Read more »
I appreciate the clarification, and agree.
I think people are confusing their moral arguments on this subject by adopting the unspoken assumption that abortion might be completely outlawed tomorrow, and women who had spent their entire lives seeing abortion (in the first trimester, at least) as both legal and morally justifiable would find themselves facing a prison term for having an illegal abortion. In reality, that’s not how it would play out at all. It would take at least a generation (probably several generations) for us to get to the place where abortion is outlawed. It would necessarily include profound changes in cultural norms long before… Read more »
Good quote, nonetheless.
Well, it’s been a good run, Doug. I’ve been reading your blog for several months and have agreed with pretty much everything you’ve said. But alas, today we part ways. The idea that most women don’t know exactly what they’re getting into is hopelessly naive, and as others have observed, more than a little patronising. Refusing to acknowledge personhood does not make one innocent. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Trump was right (before he backpedalled, like the opportunist filth he is). Implicit in an honest pro-life stance is that women are co-conspirators in the premeditated killing of a… Read more »
“The sooner we start speaking of abortion in these terms – not as “kinda murdery but not quite”, but as murder – the sooner we ignite the civil war that will likely be necessary to finally suppress this wicked evil.”
Considering Wilsons history on this subject asking for a civil war is most amusing.
Wars break stuff, they don’t fix stuff. They may be unavoidable, but don’t blithely assume your team will win.
And sometimes, even when your side “wins” The Big One, you wind up destroying Western Civilization in the process.
But it’s kinda late to be fretting about that now.
I’m going to readily concede that. But certainly, I don’t see abortion being abolished peacefully. It’s obviously one of those things which I’d love to be proved wrong about, albeit one that I suspect I won’t be proved wrong about.
I certainly agree that it won’t go away before a replacement for USA can be found or built.
See, folks, what did I tell ya? Doug’s a radical feminist. Maybe not quite as radical as Gloria Steinem, but a radical feminist nonetheless. He believes women don’t know right from wrong and therefore should not be held accountable for their actions (unless they’re married to a racist like Donald Trump). Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that he won’t deny that he believes that. He will deny it, when someone is so rude as to point it out. And he’ll certainly deny it in the lengthier response he says he’s working on. But once the controversy… Read more »
“He believes women don’t know right from wrong and therefore should not be held accountable for their actions”
Isn’t that the opposite of feminism?
No. It’s the essence of feminism.
Try to keep up.
I wasn’t aware that the essence of feminism was that women can’t tell right from wrong.
I know. That’s why I told you to try to keep up.
If you don’t know that, you don’t know the first thing about feminism.
Womens sufferage is feminist, how does that go with them being incapable of knowing right from wrong.
Figure it out for yourself.
Or, if that’s too hard, just go back to leaving lame, asinine comments on threads where people are having serious conversations. You obviously enjoy making yourself look like a clown, so why stop now and pretend like you’re capable of behaving like an adult?
“people are having serious conversations.”
Is that what you’re doing?
Since you love being a clown, you should change your name to John Wayne Casey.
You mean Marion Michael Morrison Casey? Or as in Gracey?
Gacy*
Quick – call me a racist again!
My answer to the Matthews would have been that having had an abortion is punishment in itself, which is one of the reasons it should be illegal- it’s morally, spiritually and psychologically damaging to women.
The follow-up question would then be: “So should a mother who kills her 6 month old be punished? Or is that murder punishment in itself? It is certainly morally, spiritually and psychologically damaging to women.”
typical
it is a crime to suggest women should be punished for murder…. women get away with anyhting these days
I appreciate Wilson’s point and that is the kind of reason that has led many of us over to the pro life side. That is how you change people’s hearts. Unfortunately from having had so many of these discussions, many people cannot get over the part about punishing women. What Trump said really was representative of the way so many pro-lifers feel. There’s a power struggle involved in the debate and that struggle is what fuels abortion. When you’re playing a game of tug of war one way to win is to let go of the rope because your opponents… Read more »
For the law to be consistent, we must define the entity in the womb. Many other statutes will add punishment if harm comes to the entity in the womb, recognizing it as a human child worthy of protection under the law. If we’re to punish the people who are paid to commit the hit on the child, why not punish the person who willingly submitted the child to be slaughtered? We’re claiming that the person who hired the hitman didn’t understand what they were doing??? How then do we claim the hitman to be competent at all? We’re convicting the… Read more »
“Trump is a regular corduroy pillow — always making headlines” . . .yep, and i suspect, if elected as either the Republican nominee or eventually the POTUS, he will continually leave marks on either the party or National “forehead.”
Can we just compromise and end this petty bickering? Let Cruz be president west of the Mississippi and let Trump be president east of it.
We really need three countries: East Coast, West Coast, and Flyover. There’s very little risk to us here in Flyover if that happens — if things start to get bad we can just walk across the border to East or West — BOOM! Living Wage!!!
But what about north and south? Do Minnesotans have more in common with Texans or with Californians?
Minnesota can just join Canada. They already talk like them, eh? and part of their state is already there.
I’ve always thought they would fit in very well. And they are very good at hockey. But are they willing to learn French and the metric system?
Those things will, of course, be optional. Much like English is in America.
I think if you’ll look at the map, you’ll find that Minnesota is technically part of Sweden.
Trump has already listed some of the SCOTUS judges he would appoint and they are all solid Constitutionalists. Although I don’t agree with this issue even being in the Federal Court system, that’s where it is and Trump’s position on the type of justices he would appoint is right in line with ‘conservative’ opinion. That should be enough for anyone supporting a Ted Cruz.
…and the women and men are, naturally, “punished,” imprisoned by a life-sentence of regret. If everyone who considered themselves opposed to abortion in any or all circumstances were to spend one hour today actually acting as if they were defending the innocent against murder, if they were working to help others not become murderers, the debate would be changed over night.
I am wondering what you mean by actually acting as if we are defending the innocent against murder. Most of the ways I can think of doing that are illegal and would probably be counterproductive.
Yes, the poor women are deluded. They’ve been lied to their whole life that it’s just a clump of cells and not really a person. Just like we men have been lied to our whole lives that women are our equals and have moral agency.
Doug, as usual, your logic is not sound. How can the women that get abortions not “know” what they are doing? They know they are pregnant. They know that getting an abortion will end their pregnancy. Is the issue that these women are convinced that what they are doing is not murder? You mention that these poor women are “fraudulently manipulated into a form of involuntary manslaughter”. Manslaughter refers to a situation in which the death of the victim was not intended. How can an abortion be a form of this? The women do not intend to have the baby… Read more »
http://www.memes.com/r/8uZd
This is what I love about Trump. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, he has special knack for exposing the inconsistencies and outright hypocrisies of his supposed “principled” conservative/Christian opposition. Trump draws on the logical implication that if abortion is murder than those who commit abortions (murder) ought to be punished, including the women having the abortions. And what does the pro-life movement do? Throw a fit. Hem and haw. Make excuses. Deny female moral agency. Tell Trump he’s “gone too far.” Pretend women are just too darn stupid to know what they’re doing when they go in to have an abortion.… Read more »
This is absurd. Women are not stupid. Of course they know what they are doing. If you are correct, maybe we need punishment so they would get the point?
Doug, if you ever decide to adopt Jeff Bezos’ latest idea, and start monetizing this site by offering readers the option to pay to remove all the vowels from pieces they don’t like, I would give a buck or two to have this one disemvoweled.
Joe Carter over at TGC tries to explain why, even though abortion is murder, women who hire someone to kill their babies aren’t murderers. Of course, he can’t just come out and say the real reason, “Women don’t have moral agency and therefore can’t be held responsible for their actions.” That would never do. So he says that if we treat women as accomplices we would never be able to successfully prosecute abortionists, so we have to let the women off. Which certainly beats Doug Wilson’s argument that women are, by and large, drooling imbeciles who have no idea what… Read more »
Doug, you say that women, with a few rare exceptions, shouldn’t be held accountable for killing their babies because, “as a class” they don’t understand what abortion is all about and
they have been fraudulently manipulated into a form of negligent manslaughter.
If women “as a class” are so stupid that they have no idea that there’s any relationship between pregnancy, babies, and abortion, and are so easily tricked into doing something so horrendous as murdering their own child, why in the world should they be allowed to vote?
I don’t buy the “I didn’t know” defense, and I don’t think God does either.
If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,
and will he not repay man according to his work? Proverbs 24:12 (ESV)
I’m willing to bet that Wilson’s comments were about the current state of pro-life affairs rather than any notions of Biblical justice.
Today, Trump got it “wrong” because what he espoused as the pro-life position is actually not. Tomorrow, when God’s Law reigns supreme and the Kingdom is more firmly established in the nations, a woman will be executed for hiring a hitman to murder her baby…as it should be.
Well, call me crazy, but I think the message of the cross is that we are all worthy of execution and death. When “God’s law reigns supreme,” I think we’re supposed to point to Christ and plead for mercy, not point at others and demand their execution.
So, hiring a hitman is now consequence free.