The Alabama House of Representatives passed a bill designed to test the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. The bill would ban abortion with the sole exception for protecting the life of or health of the mother. The bill is clearly unconstitutional under cases after Roe v. Wade but that is the point. Members want to force a new review of the fundamental question of Roe v. Wade. They could not have asked for more help from Alabama State Rep. John Rogers (D) who opposed the bill with a shocking statement that left many speechless: “Some kids are unwanted, so you kill them now or you kill them later. You bring them in the world unwanted, unloved, you send them to the electric chair. So, you kill them now or you kill them later.” The bill passed 74-3.
Rogers added that some children who face abortion could be “retarded” and “half-deformed.”
It is a shocking and deeply offensive argument that is worthy of condemnation. Rogers succeeded in not only destroying his own credibility but making the case for those members on the other side of the debate.
Rudyard Kipling saw this coming.
Macdonough’s Song
“As easy as A B C”–A Diversity of Creatures”
“Whether the State can loose and bind
In Heaven as well as on Earth:
If it be wiser to kill mankind
Before or after the birth–
These are matters of high concern
Where State-kept schoolmen are;
But Holy State (we have lived to learn)
Endeth in Holy War…”
I know this might be a weird thought and somewhat obtuse, but I was pondering abortion and the huge numbers of procedures and how it it is used as a form of contraceptive. My brain thought of this tangent. Since the progressives nearly melt down when they here the tern abstinence, and it is not to be taught, I wonder how many babies have been saved by aids. Before we all freak out, let me explain my logic here. Suppose aids never existed. Then what would be the repercussions to having unprotected sex? We’ve torn down the family/moral values in our society to the point were killing the unborn is casual. This would only be worse if aids were not in the back of our minds. In a way, maybe aids has saved more lives than it has taken?
In a way, maybe aids has saved more lives than it has taken?
Jim,
You’ve been one of the more reasoned contributors to this blog, but that comment falls well short of your usual insights. Imagine 60 million fewer children have had to endure a life of hate, poverty, sickness, etc. all because they were blessed to have parent(s) willing to abort them. Yeah, no, those arguments are a fail every time.
Olly,
I think you may have miss understood my thought exercise. Let me first state that I don’t necessarily believe in my statement, thus it is a thought. Being a teenager in the 80’s there was a real fear of aids and thus I know I personally did not sleep around since you increased your odds of contracting the disease. So, in a way, could fear of aids be considered a form of contraceptive? If true, then it has prevented more pregnancies and thus less abortions. Today, with access to abortion, what are the consequences for having sex other than disease?
Just thinking/pondering out load, maybe I should stop.
Today, with access to abortion, what are the consequences for having sex other than disease?
Jim,
I did understand your point and there is certainly aspects to consider; your question above as an example.
Today, there are positive and negative consequences to having sex. The risk of disease of course being a negative, producing a child being of course a positive. Then again, all of that is in the eye of the beholder. What does it say about today’s culture that is so self-absorbed that they only fear the loss of being able to delete their “mistakes”?
“What does it say about today’s culture that is so self-absorbed that they only fear the loss of being able to delete their “mistakes”?”
Olly,
True enough. I always find it somewhat curious when they say female contraceptive is a women’s health issue. I tend to think of health issues as something that we are trying to fix (cancer, diabetes, broken leg, etc). What are we trying to fix here? Is pregnancy to be viewed as a disease or abnormality? Yes, there are cases where the pill is used for health issues but that is far from the norm. Female contraceptive is a lifestyle issue not a health issue so I should not be on the hook to help fund it just as if you take up running as a hobby, I shouldn’t have to help buy your shoes.
I find it somewhat interesting how my views on abortion have changed over time. I think the thing that really woke me up was the shear amount of them coupled with the procedure itself.
Went and saw “Unplanned”, it was a tough one to get through.
Your comment reminds me of the meme:
If methadone is free to addicts because they have a disease…why is chemo not free for cancer patients?
Perfect!
The gateway to opiate addiction isn’t always euphoria. Some of us with cancer have to take addictive pain drugs because tumors grow on nerve tissue, too, and don’t care if the medicine that makes the pain go away is abused by many people, and politicians promise to take the medicine away from us so they can (bizarrely) seem “compassionate”.
I’m fortunate that I don’t take really strong opiates for pain relief any more. Part of that is accepting breakthrough pain other people would turn to oxycontin for, and part is accepting treatment of my tumors by strong external beam radiation as well as strong internal targeted radiation which seeks my tumors out. I’ve tried chemo and it just doesn’t get it done.
Get the excellent book “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer”, by Siddhartha Mukherjee,
Im an oncologist
you’ll be in my prayers.
Thanks, I will. More information’s always good, Doctor.
So sorry you are dealing with cancer. My wife has cancer and chemo was her treatment…and it worked for now.
The point of the meme isn’t about the treatment method, but rather the theory that some treatments for disease are deemed worthy of public funding while cancer is not.
Part of the issue is methadone’s a cheap, small molecutle. The “go to” drug for addiction these days costs more (it’s still on market exclusivity), and its manufacturers have successfully lobbied state legislatures to require it to be used rather than less expensive drugs.
I agree, it’s counter-intuitive that not just addiction therapy but gender reassignment are fundable in some states on Medicaid, while cancer patients in the same states have to be triaged for effective treatment.
Of course, Big Pharma prices new, unprecedentedly effective treatments of aggressive cancers sky-high, which doesn’t help the issue.
I’ve worked for Big Pharma firms and also been a clinical trial volunteer for new cancer treatments. Drug development is risky and expensive, and only 1 out of every 10 trial drugs is approved for sale by FDA. The alternative, though, is not knowing which drugs work until enough patients die from getting the wrong one.
The answer, I suspect, is in the scary process of putting everyone’s medical records on large computer databases and seeing what works and what doesn’t for every disease.
It’s scary for those of us who know what politicians might do with that knowledge, but knowing we can figure these things out and don’t (while other countries like Canada and Taiwan do – THEY discovered that a whole family of antibiotics caused all sorts of horrible side effects and should only be used if the risk of those side-effects is less than not treating the patient with the most effective drug).
If we used the information in everyone’s medical charts, we could have less expensive medications and cheaper medical care.
You just didn’t carry your thought experiment all the way through. 30,000,000 people.have died from AIDS since its discovery, Over 36.9 million people are living with that disease now.
If the fear of AIDS is a contraceptive, its cost is high. An unattended shotgun aimed at the front door of a cabin in the woods whose trigger is on a tripwire serves as a deterrent to burglars – making the cabin owner guilty of voluntary manslaughter when it goes off and kills whoever pulls on the doorknob.
Ecologists could borrow the thought experiment and say hemorrhagic viruses like Ebolavirus, machupo, nairavirus and marburgvirus are all deterrents to the destruction of forest habitats. After all, if a forest virus (which AIDS once was) goes on a worldwide burn someday and kills 30 million people, it’s humanity’s fault for cutting down all those trees and disturbing the wildlife that carry the viruses.
Richard Preston, who wrote “The Hot Zone” about an outbreak of an airborne mutant form of Ebola in a monkey laboratory just outside Washington, DC, says that there’s a good case for AIDS being called for the Kinshasa Highway, the first somewhat reliable road cut from the coast of Africa across the continent and making the Congo forests accessible – thus making AIDS accessible over the road..
Promiscuity was just one factor in the spread of AIDS. If, like Ebola reston virus or SARS, it could spread by droplets through the air, then the Belgian flight steward thought to have brought the disease to the US could have spread AIDS merely by breathing.
Jim22…..I see exactly what you’re saying……and I would add that any kind of fear that discourages unprotected intercourse has more than likely saved babies from being aborted.
Shaping of the population is not new. Within the year of the adoption of the U.S.Constitution, the American Founders thrice required citizens to be “…free white person(s)…” in the Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795 and 1802, clearly defining the “original intent” for America’s population. Abraham Lincoln planned to “manipulate” the population by compassionately repatriating freed slaves, who will never be capable of assimilation, to Liberia.
“Kill them now” has been the policy since 1973 with a result of 61 million, and counting, murders by liberals (i.e. communists).
“Higher than AIDS, violent crimes, accidents, cancer and heart disease–combined. African Americans are disproportionately impacted by abortion. While representing only 13% of the female population in the U.S., black women account for 35% of the nation’s abortions
– US Center for Disease Control
US Census Bureau
Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country, targets African Americans by locating 62% (approx. 2 out of every 3) of their surgical abortion mills in black and minority communities.
– Life Issues Connector, October 2012
Abortion’s negative impact has significantly contributed to African Americans being the only minority in America whose population is in decline. Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the country. If the current trend continues, the black community may cease to make a significant positive contribution to society.
Many people do not know that since 1973 (year abortion was legalized in the U.S.) more African American babies have been killed by ABORTION than the total number of African American deaths from all other causes COMBINED.
– US Center for Disease Control and the Guttmacher Institute
The abortion rate among African American women is three times greater than it is among White women
– Guttmacher Institute
According to the 2000 Census, Hispanics have replaced African Americans as the largest minority group in the US. The loss of over 16 million black babies through abortion has played a significant part in this population decline”
https://www.protectingblacklife.org/facts-about-abortion/
Number of chikdren per family seems to fall as people enter the middle class. China rescinded its “One Chld” policy partly because its population isn’t mostly peasants who have cconomic as well as other reasons to have many children.
Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger, a eugenicist and disciple of Havelock Ellis and other well-known progressives, meant from the beginning to reduce the number of African-Americans and other ethnic groups looked down on by Sanger and her friends. There’s no confusion on that point at all.
But those who want to elimiinate abortions have to make alternatives available. “Rubber trees” in public schools to give contraception to those who want it may be scandalous, but they’re much, much preferable to infanticide.
There is a shred of truth in his statements. Frequently unwanted children do not do well. Some are in fact executed. Check the Texas track record on this subject.
Texas is a big state. But their death row arguably isn’t much bigger than Calfornia’s. Unlike California and New York, however, Texas doesn’t indulge in the cognitive dissonance sentencing murderers and other villains to death, but never executing any of them. The Texas courts carry out the will of Texas’ lawmakers, who were elected by the people of Texas. If they execute more people than other states, the reason is that their courts and government do their jobs in ways other states don’t.
Sweet home Alabama.
Which Alabama?
There is a song out there from years past. The words do not reference a chicken.
In days of old ..
When Knights were bold..
And rubbers weren’t invented…
The tied a sock around the cock..
And babies were prevented.
It is a shocking and deeply offensive argument that is worthy of condemnation. Rogers succeeded in not only destroying his own credibility but making the case for those members on the other side of the debate.
Roe v Wade ruling is deeply offensive and worthy of condemnation.
Consider analyzing the ruling using the data SCOTUS had then versus the medical evidence available now. You better than anyone should be helping to overturn this heinous ruling
——-
Pope: Abortion is a ‘white glove’ equivalent to Nazi crimes
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis denounced abortion on Saturday as the “white glove” equivalent of the Nazi-era eugenics program and urged families to accept the children that God gives them.
Francis spoke off-the-cuff to a meeting of an Italian family association, ditching his prepared remarks to speak from the heart about families and the trials they undergo. He lamented how some couples choose not to have any children, while others resort to pre-natal testing to see if their baby has any malformations or genetic problems.
“The first proposal in such a case is, ‘Do we get rid of it?’” Francis said. “The murder of children. To have an easy life, they get rid of an innocent.”
Francis recalled that as a child he was horrified to hear stories from his teacher about children “thrown from the mountain” if they were born with malformations.
“Today we do the same thing,” he said.
Francis has repeated the strict anti-abortion stance of his predecessors and integrated it into his broader condemnation of what he calls today’s “throw-away culture.” He has frequently lamented how the sick, the poor, the elderly and the unborn are considered unworthy of protection and dignity by a society that prizes instead individual prowess.
https://nypost.com/2018/06/17/pope-abortion-is-a-white-glove-equivalent-to-nazi-crimes/
Francis, whining about ancient Sparta. The only thing to learn here from Sparta is that if you don’t have enough of your own kind, the others will overwhelm and conquer you.
Anencephaly is a dread condition. We are blessed that it is very rare. I am loathe to spend a lot of energy on debates over very rare problems.
Francis, whining about ancient Sparta….Anencephaly is a dread condition
Pope Francis said nothing about Sparta, never mind ancephaly, a genetic condition where the developing baby is never viable a few days post delivery
Read much?
Members want to force a new review of the fundamental question of Roe v. Wade.
Laws get passed, they get challenged and they may end up in front of the supreme court. Isn’t that how our system is supposed to work?
If Prof. Turley had meant that Alabama shouldn’t challenge Roe v. Wade he’d have said something more like “they just want to force a new review of Roe v. Wade… ”
There are people who do make that argument. They never complain that Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992 revisited Roe v. Wade and affirmed and extended the argument that the 14th Amendment protects abortion rights.
I’m interested in what the present Supreme Court would to do “penumbral reasoning”. They’ve reversed previous Courts’ rulings on the meaning of the wording and legislative intent behind the Second Amendment – the previous courts indulged in what has now been ruled impermissible interpretation.
What should this court do with Roe v. Wade‘s holding of protection of abortion rights under the penumbra of privacy rights?
I wonder what people are thinking when they cast votes to elect politicians who make remarks like this or don’t they “think” that is.
The bill is clearly unconstitutional under cases after Roe v. Wade but that is the point. Members want to force a new review of the fundamental question of Roe v. Wade.
No, the bill is not unconstitutional. It merely conflicts with Roe, which was an egregious decision.
The senior dissenting justice in Roe v. Wade, Justice Byron White, summed up the arguments against the ruling in ways no one’s ever really been able to logically answer:
Even as a Libertarian, I feel Roe v. Wade is long overdue for review. The present Supreme Court is well-balanced enough to protect the interests of all involved. It ought to be the defining ruling in Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s career, should she remain on the Court that long. But Kavanaugh is libertarian enough that he alone would make up for her loss to the Court.
Sp what’s the excitement about? New York State and Virginia both have laws that say essentially what this state rep said, albeit a tad more politely/
Nope, Virginia doesn’t. To the contrary, the Va Statute protects third-trimester life unless “the continuation of the pregnancy is likely to result in the death of the woman or substantially and irremediably impair the mental or physical health of the woman,” as certified by the woman’s physician and two other consulting physicians. It’s just our low IQ governor-doctor who doesn’t get it.
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter4/section18.2-74/
He’s not low IQ at all. The problem in this country is that our fancy bourgeoisie (who are not low IQ) prefer one set of policies and the rest of us prefer another. It’s indicative of how wretched our institutions are that for more than 45 years, the opinions of that 15% have prevailed over the other 85%.
“He’s [Northam] not low IQ at all.
*****************
Okay you be the judge. Here he is explaining the blackface fiasco as a tribute to Michael Jackson. Thankfully, his wife has some sense:
He’s not articulate when cornered. Which is a problem when you’re a trial lawyer. Not such a problem for other professionals.
absurdX5………regarding trial lawyers being inarticulate when cornered: I must have been absent that day….have never witnessed it and I’ve been married to my trial lawyer for 47 yrs. For one thing, mine is uncornerable. For another thing, I can never win an argument with my trial lawyer, even though I’m a relentless debate diva (until I start crying 😏)
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2019/05/01/democrats-for-life-meet-with-sen-casey-after-he-attends-pro-abortion-fundraiser/
Democrats for Life meet with Sen. Casey after he attends pro-abortion fundraiser
WASHINGTON, D.C. — After coming under fire for attending a fundraiser for EMILY’s List last month — a political action committee dedicated to electing pro-choice women to office — Democratic Senator Bob Casey met with the head of Democrats for Life (DFLA) on Tuesday.
“We appreciate Senator Casey’s pro-life votes — most recently, voting to provide health care to unwanted children who survive an abortion attempt,” said Kristen Day, the executive director of DFLA, in a statement after the meeting. “However, you cannot claim to be for something and then turn around and support a group that stands directly against those ideals.”
Day told Crux that the board of Democrats for Life is eager to see more Democratic leaders elected to office, particularly in Congress, because there are so many other issues, such as anti-poverty issues, that the group agrees with the Democratic party on.
On the issue of abortion, however, she said that the group stands in stark contrast to EMILY’s List.
“EMILY’s List does not exist to support Democrats, but to support only abortion rights and exclusively female candidates who support abortion rights,” said Day.
“DFLA exists to support pro-life Democrats, as Senator Casey has declared himself to be as recently as his last re-election in 2018 when we proudly supported his candidacy,” she continued in a statement.
“We share the senator’s support for electing more Democrats. But that can be done without compromising his pro-life position,” said Day. “We urge the senator to support and be a voice for prolife candidates, who often find our party not very welcoming and are often told to change their position in exchange for support from the party.”
Casey has served in the U.S. Senate since 2006, when he beat then two-term Senator Rick Senator. In 2018, he was elected for a third consecutive term in office.
EMILY’s List — an acronym for “Early Money is Like Yeast” — was founded in 1985 and is widely considered one of the most powerful political groups in favor of abortion rights. Casey attended their annual gala in early April, despite the fact that he has repeatedly campaigned against abortion.
The Catholic senator holds a law degree from the Catholic University of America (CUA) and served in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps after completing his undergraduate degree at the College of the Holy Cross.
The only thing that seems to unite the mob called the Democrats is their ceaseless adoration of abortion.
People don’t “adore” medical care. They need medical care, not only for themselves, but to avoid a greater burden to the community if that medical care is unavailable.
“They need medical care, not only for themselves“
Killing unwanted children isn’t medical care.
_____
At the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C, on February 5, 1994, Mother Theresa dared to speak her mind and heart about the right to life
“I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.
By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. The father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/abortion/catholic-teaching/blessed-mother-teresa-on-abortion
“We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. … Three generations of imbeciles are enough”
Oliver W. Holmes
So JT lives in Alabama and will not vote for this guy?
This is worthy of comment by JT because…….?
Is there web site devoted to stupid things our several thousand state reps say? Wny not just post that.
RogersTurley succeeded in not only destroying his own credibility but making the case for those members on the other side of the debate.
Professor JT,
Are you serious?!? Your post reads like something Planned Barrenhood would author.
Where have you been my dear Catholic Professor? You have benefited from being exposed (I hope) to some of the greatest writings written in the 20th Century in the realms of philosophy and scholasticism, including Pope John Paul II.
Is your first love the pronouncements of 9 unelected men in black robes who have a history of passing the most despicable, inhumane and ungodly rulings known to our nation? Need you be reminded of Buck v Bell?
http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/eugenics/
Are you channeling Oliver Wendell Holmes by embracing moral skepticism snd shunning natural law?
I am flummoxed at your strident article towards all Americans and the AL Legislature, never mind the sanctity of life
To wit, Roe v Wade was based on woefully inadequate scientific information. Modern embryological research would torpedo Roe v Wade if it were decided today. Abortions are embraced only by those extremists who truly don’t want to be scientifically informed
be informed!
The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology
Paperback – March 15, 2019
by Keith L. Moore BA MSc PhD DSc FIAC FRSM FAAA (Author), T. V. N. Persaud MD PhD DSc FRCPath (Lond.) FAAA (Author), Mark G. Torchia MSc PhD (Author)
ISBN-13: 978-0323611541
https://www.amazon.com/Developing-Human-Clinically-Oriented-Embryology/dp/0323611540/
Langman’s Medical Embryology
Paperback – November 14, 2018
by T.W. Sadler PhD (Author)
#1 Best Seller in Embryology
ISBN-13: 978-1496383907
https://www.amazon.com/Langmans-Medical-Embryology-T-W-Sadler/dp/1496383907/
It’s a Fact: Supreme Court Errors Aren’t Hard to Find
A ProPublica review adds fuel to a longstanding worry about the nation’s highest court: The justices can botch the truth, sometimes in cases of great import.
https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-errors-are-not-hard-to-find
It’s sad that our own elected representatives are so ignorant and insane but we’ve seen the dems the last year and know how far these politicians will go with lies, narratives, smears, and extreme rhetoric. But What an idiot if he thinks the 60Million babies that have been aborted in the last 50 years, would have faced the death penalty.
He is an advocate of the Minority Report and Gattaca, I see.
He destroyed his credibility?
Professor, it sounds to me like, if anything, he saved his credibility as a Democrat!
St Mother Teresa of Calcutta said it best
“We must not be surprised when we hear of murders, of killings, of wars, of hatred. If a mother can kill her own child, what is left but for us to kill each other.”
“It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”