By Scott Tibbs, January 17, 2011
My letter to the editor last week promoting the 2011 Rally for Life drew nearly 70 comments. Some of these are legitimate questions, and some are not. This is my response to those comments.
- And how many unwanted kids have you adopted,Mr Tibbs?
This is a common pro-abortion fallacy, that unless someone has adopted a baby they are not qualified to speak to the issue. But no one would make the same argument to people who have not adopted a pet from the animal shelter, when that person is arguing against dogfighting or animal abuse. Either the unborn are human beings who deserve protection under the law or they are not. That, not adoption, is the real argument.
- Where is the line between living cells and true human life? Reasonable people are able to discuss it without invoking absolutes.
Skin cells are living cells, but they will never become a human being unless they are used for cloning. Once sperm and egg join, a new human being is created. That new human will grow and develop through the stages of life, given time, nutrition and shelter. Skin cells (or any other cell) will not go through that process. This is an easy distinction, and therefore it is easy to establish a moral absolute.
- You might not be a Republican, but assuming you are, how can you support using my tax dollars to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Iraqis?
I am opposed to the war in Iraq, but that is irrelevant to my opposition to abortion. Either the unborn are human beings deserving of protection under the law or they are not. My position on invasion of Iraq does not have any logical connection to arguments about whether or not it should be legal to kill a baby in the womb.
- Also, god is the number 1 abortionist of them all. Far surpassing Planned Parenthood.
Then because cancer is an act of God, we can just kill whoever we want? Cool! Cancer justifies drive-by shootings!
Predictable response: "No, they are not the same. The fetus is not a person."
That's fine, but what you are doing is admitting your own hypocrisy and dishonesty. If the argument is about personhood, then let's make the argument about personhood. But you clearly do not even believe your own argument about miscarriage. If you want to be taken seriously, then make a serious argument, rather than post foolishness and then run away from your "argument" when it is exposed as foolishness.
- The argument isn't (or should not be) whether or not the fertilized egg is a human. People will disagree.
Would we have said the same thing in 1850? The argument isn't (or should not be) whether or not the Negro is fully human. People will disagree on that. The government should not making the decision for everyone whether people should be allowed to keep their Negro property. That is not only wrong, it is obscene. The humanity of the fetus is at the heart of the argument.
- Will that also be a rally against the death penalty? Against two wars? Against poverty? Will it be a rally in favor of universal health care?
Different people have different opinions on capital punishment, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the proper means to deal with poverty and health care. People at the rally will have differing opinions about these issues. But when you have 1.2 million children killed every single year and over 50 million children killed since 1973, there is no bigger life issue on the table. Furthermore, the idea that we have to address all these other issues at the Rally for Life is both illogical and selfish. There are 364 other days in the year to address those issues.
The 2011 Rally for Life is on January 23, 2011 at 2:00 pm at the Monroe County Courthouse.
See my report on the 2010 rally here.
