Choosing between drowning two children or 100

That's the hypothetical comparison that Randy Alcorn uses to explain why he will vote for John McCain:

Suppose in the town you live in, there’s a lake where, for the last thirty-five years, children have been taken by parents to be drowned. Say that every day 100 children are brought to this lake.

As a town citizen, you are presented with two candidates for mayor. (You can vote for a third party, but clearly one of these two candidates will be elected.) One candidate publicly states that he believes the right thing is that the children not be brought to that lake. They should be allowed to live, except the one or two conceived by rape. By longstanding town law the 100 daily drownings are all legal, and the mayor can’t change the law. However, this mayoral candidate has publicly stated that the law should be changed, and he hopes to appoint judges who help that happen, so that 98 or 99 of the 100 children would live rather than die.

Now, the deaths of those one or two children conceived by rape should rightly disturb you. And if until now zero children had been killed at the lake, it would be evil to vote for a man willing for one or two to be legally drowned. But for thirty-five years, 100 children have been killed there each day. This man is trying to move the town in the right direction, even though he has stopped just short of a 100% reversal. No additional children will be killed if his position were in place, because those one or two children would have been killed anyway under existing law. But 98 or 99 a day would be rescued from the death they will face if his position isn’t put in place.

The other mayoral candidate believes that not one of those 100 children chosen for drowning by their parents should be rescued. He believes that the doctors holding them under the water should be allowed to do this. He is prochoice about the drowning of children. In the last twenty years there have been some limited prolife measures voted in by townspeople that have made it more difficult to drown children, saving some lives. But this candidate has promised to sign a bill that would remove all those restrictions. He would invalidate the requirement that doctors explain to parents what it means to drown a child. He would invalidate the law that requires grandparents to be notified if their children are going to drown their grandchildren.

In fact, this man has said of his own daughters, “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.” He would support their right to hire a doctor to drown their babies, his grandchildren, in the lake. And he promises the town’s legal drowning organization, which makes considerable money by drowning children, that he will only appoint town judges who are in favor of the legalized-child-drowning laws.

Now here is our moral dilemma. Our next mayor will either be the 98%-don’t-drown-the-children candidate OR the 100%-drown-all-children-whose-parents-don’t-want-them candidate.

We could write in someone who has no chance of winning. It would be a protest vote, showing we don’t totally agree with either candidate. However, if others who believe all babies deserve to live do this same thing, the result will be that the 98% prolife candidate can’t win, and the 0% prolife candidate will be our mayor.

If you vote for the candidate in favor of saving 98 babies, it could be argued that you would be voting for the lesser of evils, since killing one or two children is evil. But after all these years of child-killing, you see the opportunity—if the 98% prolife mayor takes office and makes those prolife court appointments, countless future children’s lives could be saved. It’s not certain, but it’s a real possibility. And what is certain is this: if the candidate in favor of legalized child-killing wins the election, due to his agreement to remove any of the town’s existing child-killing restrictions, more children will die who wouldn’t have if the other candidate takes office.

Just in case it's not obvious: John McCain will work to save 98 children from being drowned (i.e. aborted), his exceptions being when the child is conceived as a result of rape or incest, or when the mother's life is in danger. (Yes, that's right -- rape, incest or life-threatening conditions make up about 2 percent of "drownings.")

Barack Obama will ensure that the parents of those 98 children (as well as those of two neighbors) are allowed to plunge their children beneath the surface of the lake in order to extinguish their short lives. Without exception.

Quote of the Day: Obama's certainty on abortion

From Rich Lowry:

At Saddleback, Obama said determining when a baby gets rights is “above his pay grade.” Leave aside that presidents usually have an opinion about who deserves legal rights. If Obama is willing to permit any abortions in any circumstances, he’d better possess an absolute certainty about the absolute moral nullity of the fetus.

Or as the folks at Stand to Reason like to say: If the unborn is not a human person, no justification for abortion is necessary. However, if the unborn is a human person, no justification for abortion is adequate.

Never mind the mainstream, he's on the extreme fringe

Who said this?

When a child is born, they deserve every protection that the country can provide them.

I'll give you a hint: the speaker is talking about abortion.

Here, I'll give you multiple choice. Was it:

a) Barack Obama
b) John McCain
c) Kate Michelman
d) James Dobson
e) None of the above

Give up? The answer is (e). The speaker was actually an executive for NARAL Pro-Choice America, stating that her organization did not oppose keeping a baby alive once it's born, regardless of how or when that birth occurs. (Nice of them, isn't it?)

What she was talking about was the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA), which passed in 2002 and says that a child who is born "at any stage of development" and who is still living after that birth (no matter if the birth occurred from labor or induced abortion), has all the rights afforded to any other person. It also made a point to say these rights did not apply to a child prior to his or her birth, lest the pro-abortion folks have a meltdown.

And because it stipulated that those rights did not apply prior to birth, NARAL did not oppose the bill.

But Barack Obama did. Mr. Obama holds the opinion that if a mom wants to abort her child and the child somehow survives the abortion attempt, that child has no right to medical care to keep it alive.

Oh, Mr. Obama will tell you otherwise -- that the Illinois version of the BAIPA he opposed was different than the federal law because it would have outlawed all abortions -- but he's, um, mis-remembering. Mr. Obama was chairman of the Health & Human Services Committee when he voted against an amendment that contained language identical to the federal bill passed a year earlier. So because NARAL Pro-Choice America didn't oppose the bill when Mr. Obama did, that places Mr. Obama on the extreme political fringe -- never mind outside the mainstream -- compared to NARAL, one of the most stringent pro-abortion organizations in the country.

In fact, it seems Barack Obama is in favor of allowing a doctor to pull a living baby out until just the head is outside its mother, stab it in the back of the head with a sharp object and create a hole large enough to suck the brains out. After all, Mr. Obama has promised that one of his top priorities as president would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would erase every federal and state restriction on abortion. That means re-legalizing partial birth abortion, which I described above; making sure your 13-year-old daughter could abort her baby without having to tell you a thing; and ensuring that no community could say their tax dollars shouldn't pay for it.

Change we can believe in? That apparently doesn't apply if you're a fetus.

Abortion rate plummets

A new study by the Guttmacher Institute says that the number of annual abortions is down to 1.2 million, its lowest level since Roe v. Wade in 1974 and down 25 percent in the last 17 years.

That means it's only equivalent to a killing everyone in Dallas over the course of a year, instead of taking out the residents of Philadelphia (plus another 100,000-plus in the suburbs). The new figures show that a baby is killed every 26 seconds instead of every 20 seconds, as it was in 1990.

Any reduction is good news, but let's not throw a party.

Quote of the Day: reasonable doubt

On NRO this morning, Jonah Goldberg talks about the fact that he's pro-life not because he's certain of when life begins, but exactly the opposite:

In death-penalty cases, “reasonable doubt” goes to the accused because unless we’re certain, we must not risk an innocent’s life. This logic goes out the window when it comes to abortion, unless you are 100-percent sure that babies only become human beings after the umbilical cord is cut. I don’t see how you can be that sure, which is why I’m pro-life — not because I’m certain, but because I’m not.

There are legitimate scientific reasons (no, I didn't say anything about faith or the Bible, I said science!) to believe life begins at conception. But Goldberg's point is well-taken: if you can't be sure if it's appropriate to take a life -- whether the life is in the womb or on death row -- it's entirely appropriate to maintain that life. Death is the only thing you can't reverse.

Quote of the Day: on successful abortions

Robert George, a professor of politics at Princeton University, wrote to National Review's Jonah Goldberg recently on the topic of abortion, and Goldberg shared the text. It included this nugget:

The (attempted) abortion is a success or a failure depending precisely on whether they transform a living human fetus into a corpse. Anything short of fetal death---including live birth---is a failed abortion.

This is, of course, the antithesis of a doctor's supposed duty -- to prevent (if at all possible) a body from slipping into corpse status.

Quote of the Day: 'Plainer talk' on abortion

My favorite internet writer, Tony Woodlief, weighs in on the Supreme Court's Partial-Birth Abortion ruling, improving on my comments from Wednesday:

It's not clear that the latest ruling will reduce the rate of infanticide, despite the gnashing of teeth among pro-abortion spokesmen and corresponding celebration by anti-abortion spokesmen. Deprived of the relative convenience of murdering the infant outside the womb, abortionists will return to severing its limbs and head inside the womb.

Does the language offend? Shall I refer to that creature with eyelashes and grasping fingers and the capacity to feel the sun on his face, were he wanted, as a fetus? Shall I call the act of hacking him apart late-term intact dilation and extraction? I'm not one of those who indulges in the fantasy that every abortion-rights advocate is profoundly evil, but there is something distinctly wicked about this mangling of language, all in an effort to disguise precisely what goes on when a woman who believes she has no more options puts her feet in the stirrups.

As he says later in the piece, "Pro-abortion advocates too often clinicalize and dehumanize the child to be murdered, and anti-abortion protestors too often dehumanize the woman who consents to the killing. Perhaps a little plainer talk, a little more honest talk, might do us all some good."

Maybe, but I'm not optimistic.

Quote of the Day: Guiliani on abortion

Rudy Guiliani, in this interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, comes across as someone who wants to be perceived as a conservative but really holds a fairly liberal position on the issue of abortion.

Hewitt asks Guiliani about how his Catholic faith has affected his life ("It’s been a very, very important part of my life"); turns the tables to ask if the pro-choice Guiliani can keep the Catholic majority enjoyed by President Bush against the Catholic John Kerry ("I hope that people look at the overall record . . . and realize that there’s not ever going to be agreement 100% with anybody that’s running for president"); and finally asks Guiliani to describe his position on abortion.

RG: My position is that I hate it, I don’t like it, I would advise anyone on a personal basis that they’d be better off using the option of adoption if…but ultimately, it’s an individual’s choice that I don’t see dealing with by trying to put somebody in jail over it.

HH: Would you like to see Roe V. Wade reversed, Mayor?

RG: I would [hesitates, not indicating agreement]…what I’d like to see are abortions reduced, and adoptions increased. And I reduced…abortions declined about 15, 16% while I was Mayor, I think more than the national average. But most importantly, adoptions went up over 60%.

HH: But would it be a good day or a bad day for America if Roe V. Wade was reversed by the Roberts’ Court?

RG: Oh, I think that’s something the Court has to decide.

HH: All right.

RG: And I think that I would appoint strict constructionists as judges, I would not have a litmus test, there’d be a general test, a philosophical test, and that is are you going to interpret the Constitution as best you can based on what it means, not what you’d like it to mean? I can see conservative, strict constructionist judges coming to the conclusion that it should be overturned, or I could see some of them coming to the conclusion that it’s been the law for a substantial period of time, it is precedent, and applying stare decisis. So it’s not a litmus test.

He absolutely refused to respond to the question on Roe v. Wade, instead taking a very Clinton-esque approach by emphasizing the abortion rate during his time as mayor of New York City. And even his defense of the abortion rate in NYC was interesting, in that he started to take credit for the reduction, but then changed his statement to note simply that it dropped while he was mayor.

His invocation of a classic liberal canard -- "it’s an individual’s choice that I don’t see dealing with by trying to put somebody in jail over it" -- makes me suspect that he hasn't given the pro-life position much thought. It implies that the overturning of Roe v. Wade would result in the jailing of women undergoing illegal abortions, but no serious pro-life advocate would advocate such a penalty.

And then, seeming to know he's dug himself a hole, he tries to throw a bone to pro-lifers by using the "strict constructionist judges" language of conservatives. But even then he refuses to be pinned down, saying that a real conservative judge could rule either way on Roe.

Can you feel Rudy Guiliani twist and turn?

In the pockets of special interests

How do you know when a legislator is in the pocket of a special interest group? Check out the legislation sponsored by that legislator, and see if it repeats -- without question, without investigation -- the interest group's talking points.

A prime example is Senate Bill 776, which would require the state of Oregon to "collect data and study 'alternative-to-abortion organizations' in Oregon."

The bill was introduced by Senate Majority Leader Kate Brown, Sen. Richard Devlin and Rep. Diane Rosenbaum "at the request of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon [and] NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon." SB776 is co-sponsored by Senators Brad Avakian, Floyd Prozanski and Vicki Walker, and Representatives Jeff Barker, Suzanne Bonamici, Tina Kotek, Mary Nolan and Carolyn Tomei. Every sponsor -- except for first-year representatives Bonamici and Kotek -- is rated as a 100 percent supporter of NARAL, according to Project Vote Smart.

So basically, Planned Parenthood (PP) and NARAL wrote the bill for their friends in the legislature, creating a fishing expedition in an attempt to intimidate pregnancy centers that don't proclaim the "abortion for all" mantra of the extreme left.

And what is this "investigation" based on? Well, the falsehoods start in the bill's first paragraph:

Whereas “alternative-to-abortion organizations,” also called “crisis pregnancy centers,” misinform and mislead women to deter or to delay them from having abortions;

Misinform and mislead. Pretty serious accusations. On what information do they base this statement? Does the bill provide any proof? Is there any accompanying information that explains the charges?

Not a single example.

This is a classic case of out-of-state special interests run amuck, as the issue revolves around Crisis Pregnancy Centers (hereby known as CPCs) around the country that supposedly lie about their services to get an abortion-minded women in the door, and then pressure her to continue the pregnancy, the old bait-and-switch. It's not really an Oregon issue, but -- just like the tendency for local governments to follow the lead of East Coast nanny states -- some people want to create an issue.

Despite the lack of proof in the bill, however, you don't have to hunt too far to find examples from across the country, thanks to your friendly neighborhood pro-abortion folks. Carla over at Loaded Orygun was kind enough to link to this, which illustrates a pathetic attempt by a CPC to guilt a rape victim into carrying the result of her trauma. (I doubt the story is true, and there are folks on the pro-abortion side who share my doubts. It was deliberately chosen to illustrate the most extreme example -- rape victims consist of less than 1 percent of all women undergoing abortions -- but it is pathetic if valid.)

SB776 is written in the hopes that some young Oregon girl will come out of the woodwork to testify against CPCs, thus tarring the entire industry. But would that be grounds for "investigating" every CPC in the state? If an abortion clinic welcomed a young pregnant girl into its office and promised to help her, and then lied to her or tried to coerce her into an abortion, it would be grounds for investigating that clinic and possibly shutting it down. But it would not mean that every abortion clinic should suddenly be under state investigation.

It's the equivalent of asking: "So, have you stopped beating your wife?" It's a muckraker question asked without proof, without basis, in the hopes that something juicy will turn up under the next rock. It forces the target to defend himself against slanderous accusations, and any answer can be twisted as an admission to the charge, regardless of guilt.

It seems amazing that these legislators would accept the word of PP and NARAL as gospel, but it's not actually that surprising when they're in the abortion-lobby's hip pocket. CPCs are at least partially responsible for putting a dent in PP's business, as CPCs help women recognize the miracle of new life and decide not to abort their child, so PP and related groups have a vested interest in driving them out of business. This legislation was written to eliminate the competition, and pro-abortion legislators are falling over themselves to oblige.

(According to numbers from 2002, PP earns roughly 20 percent of its income -- not including the $250 billion it receives annually from the government -- by performing a quarter of a million abortions every year. For every 100 abortions at PP centers, it provides prenatal care for seven women and only makes one adoption referral, an interesting stat that betrays its true reason for existence.)

I'm not so naive as to think that PP and NARAL don't have testimony from someone who called a CPC and was told that "all condoms are defective and have slots and holes in them" or "9 out of 10 couples that go through an abortion split up," as was discussed in this Time magazine article.

But CPC protocols make it clear what they expect from their volunteers -- they don't refer for abortion or birth control, they don't give medical advice or claim they're a medical facility, they don't bad-mouth other organizations, and any deception or false implication is unacceptable. The website for Portland's Pregnancy Resource Centers specifically lists its services, and the only entry for abortion is "Information on Abortion Risks, Procedures and Alternatives." Not the procedures themselves, just information.

Oh, and PRC also offers maternity clothes; baby clothes, toys and furniture; adoption information; parenting classes; and referrals for a variety of community service organizations. Of course, it also discusses the fetus as a living human being, and notes the risks of abortion, something you won't find at your friendly neighborhood PP, which likes to talk about clumps of cells instead of arms and legs.

Do CPCs want an abortion-minded pregnant women to come in? Of course. They know (and PP/NARAL hates this!) that a woman who sees her baby on an ultrasound is likely to learn -- gasp! -- that there's a baby growing inside her.

Oh, but PP and NARAL are concerned about the truth. They want women to have all the options, so they can make informed decisions. But they should be careful when they accuse Oregon CPCs of misinformation based on national examples, as they have a few such problems of their own. So if we're going to "investigate" CPCs, why not investigate PP for willful and deliberate cover-up of sexual abuse (which, the last time I checked, was against the law, unlike failure to provide birth control info)?

Why won't a PP investigation happen? Because pro-abortion legislators are willing to play politics on behalf of the abortion-for-all mantra.

SB776 also makes several other mind-blowing claims. Here's a rundown:

Whereas some crisis pregnancy centers intentionally choose their names to mislead women into believing that the centers offer a wide range of family planning and abortion care when they do not;

Ooh, scary. Crisis Pregnancy Centers should change their names to Non-Abortion Resource Center, right after Planned Parenthood changes its name to Abortions R Us. And since when is it government's job to police the name of a business?

Look in the yellow pages, and you'll find CPCs under "abortion alternatives" and PP under "abortion providers." Not much gray area there.

Whereas many crisis pregnancy centers not only mislead women about abortion care but also will not provide information about birth control;

Suddenly the state is going to regulate private organizations that don't provide birth control information? Talk about Big Brother! Since when is it government's responsibility to force private entities to talk about any pregnancy option, regardless of how morally repugnant it may seem to them?

And the one that kills me:

Whereas in order to confuse their clients and capitalize on their patients' confusion, crisis pregnancy centers design their facilities to look like health care facilities and locate the facilities near clinics that offer family planning and abortion care;

Hey, that CPC moved in down the street from our abortion clinic! No fair! I'm gonna tell on you!

But let's talk about that, shall we? According to that Time magazine article:

Abortion remains one of the most common surgical procedures in the U.S. for women and, according to the Guttmacher Institute, fewer than 0.3% of patients experience a complication serious enough to require hospitalization.

With 1.7 million annual abortions, that's almost 100 women every week who need medical care after an abortion. Shouldn't that mean abortion clinics should meet the highest medical standards?

Not in Oregon. Those clinics are not regulated as medical facilities because state law assumes abortions are done in physicians' offices, and thus exempts abortion procedures from the rules overseeing outpatient facilities. The problem is that more than 90 percent of abortions are done in abortion clinics, separate from physicians' offices. In other words, abortion procedures are done in outpatient medical facilities, but state law hasn't caught up to that fact, so abortion clinics don't have to meet the standards required of a wisdom tooth extraction.

So whose qualifications should be questioned?

I don't have any expectations that PP and NARAL will stop playing politics with the abortion issue -- in the case of NARAL, in particular, that's the group's sole reason for existence. I just wish elected representatives would stop blindly following the pro-abortion lobby without using their brains along the way.