MORE NORRIS NONSENSE - TISSUE HAS INTRINSIC VALUE TOO!

Man, do I get fed up with these people.

Chuck Norris is at it again, bleating out a bunch of nauseating Neo-con neologisms. Article is dated January 22nd 2007.

"On Jan. 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided (via Roe v. Wade) existing laws against abortion (at both federal and state levels) violated a constitutional right to privacy and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.

As a result all national laws prohibiting or limiting abortion were reverted. The primacy of a woman's rights prevailed and the rights of the unborn were not only abandoned, but their nature legally reduced to nonhuman. "

As I've amply demonstrated before, in my post titled The Quickening, abortion's been with us since the time of Aristotle, even the 7th century church fathers rated it as a lesser sin than oral sex, and Aquinas didn't consider the fetus to be human until the quickening. And indeed, Judaic custom dictates the child is a 'person' upon the crowning of the head from the vulva.

So there's plenty of historic precedent. From their own theology, no less. But nooooo...select things have changed.

I find this next set of statements somewhat...amusing:

"A history of justifications

Both Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist strongly dissented the 7-2 majority decision on that winter day 34 years ago. In fact Rehnquist jeered their justification, ''To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment.''

Why am I amused by this? Because, not long ago, Mr. Norris was carrying on about how we need to stick to the letter of the law as outlined by the Founding Fathers! (see this post - it's vague, but the wisps of 'Original Intent' are there to be found.)

Onwards:

"We've continued to cloak the truths about abortion with a vast network of ethical justifications, inconsistencies and avoidances. ''The child will not be taken care of properly,'' ''She's too young to have children,'' ''Aborting unwanted children reduces the number of abused children,'' ''Nobody can tell me right from wrong,'' ''It's a woman's right to choose,'' ''If abortion is outlawed women will return to back-alley abortion clinics,'' etc."

These are all valid reasons.

"And guilt and accountability are often subsided by an interchange in language: instead of baby we say fetus; instead of killing we say aborting; instead of dissect we say research; instead of extermination chambers we say abortion clinics – ad nauseam. Who could ever imagine the aftermath of three decades of legalized abortions?"

Wait: what? More word-juggling. A baby can be a synonym for fetus - but when I hear the word, I think of a pink, wiggling little bundle of joy. But the word fetus is used properly, as in: "

1. The unborn young of a viviparous vertebrate having a basic structural resemblance to the adult animal.
2. In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth, as distinguished from the earlier embryo."

The phrase 'extermination chambers' is of course used to conjure up the Holocaust - a thoroughly inappropriate equivocation. In short, weasel wordage.

And of course, the old tried 'n true: blame evolution for it:

"What is human? And what's its worth?

"In an evolutionary, self-centered world, in which man is nothing more than a glorified ape aimlessly shooting for stars of deification, it's not difficult to understand how the slippery slope of human degradation has led from fetal devaluing to discarding. "

Say like, throwing away valuable stem cells because they have intrinsic value? Puh-LEASE.

I have no problem being an evolved primate. Human degradation? Isn't that the forte of religion? We're all sinners, born as spiritual Thalidomide babies, incapable of lifting ourselves from the mire imposed on us? Why, yes it is.

"At the heart of these issues, however, are a couple of questions we all must answer: What is human? Is a fetus human, even in its embryonic stage? And does human life have any intrinsic worth?"

Answer number one: looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc. No, a fetus doesn't qualify for personhood. Yes, the life extant does: but I will not elevate the life potential above that.

"Our contemporary world has indoctrinated us to believe humanness cannot be uniquely defined, a fetus is nothing more than a cellular mass, and there is no special value to being human."

Let's see - crapola on the first, yes on the second, horse manure on the third. Like all wingnuts, he mixes 'n matches freely.

"Before our embryonic twins were surgically placed into my wife Gena, the nurse told her, ''I want to show you something.'' She wheeled Gena to the incubator where they were kept and gently opened the door. The incubator was bathed in warm light and soft classical music. Gena later told me it was the most incredible sight she had ever seen. ''It was like looking at something from heaven,'' she explained. That was only 2 days after conception! Whether or not Gena had become pregnant, we were fully convinced at that moment that life begins at conception. Thirty-two weeks later our twins were born."

It's a wonderful story. Touching, really. Problem is, how do you know it's something from Heaven if you've never been there? I do wonder where they received the...tissue that was surgically placed. No disrespect intended.

Sentimentality is fine and dandy on a personal level, but you sure as hell can't legislate based on it.

"A creed that needs to be cloned

From our Founding Fathers forward, there were some basic creeds by which most Americans lived, and I believe we should go back to if we are to restore civility in our land. Here are three:

1. I believe human life is made in the image of God and as such has intrinsic value, worthy to save.

   And, as human beings, all zygotes are ''created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.'' (Preamble of the Declaration of Independence).

2. I believe aborting or destroying human life is morally wrong and goes against God's law.
3. I believe ours and others' mistakes can be forgiven and even turned around for the good."

Waitaminnit: didn't he say something earlier about the Founding Fathers? Let's see: right here - In fact Rehnquist jeered their justification, ''To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment.''

So much for the strict constructionist viewpoint. Apparently, it only applies when it's convenient.

Let's take a look at the 14th amendment while we're at it, shall we?

"Section 1 of the amendment declares that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are American citizens and citizens of their state of residence; the citizenship of African Americans was thereby established and the effect of the Dred Scott Case was overcome. The section forbids the states to abridge the privileges and immunities of U.S. citizens, to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law (a similar provision restraining the federal government is in the Fifth Amendment), and to deny any person the equal protection of the laws."

Of course, it's an amendment, and as such, can be changed to include the unborn, but then, what would the Founders do? Can we alternately cherry-pick that we wish to keep, and stay within the boundaries of 'original intent'?

From here:

"Harris v. McRae
Dissenting opinion by Thurgood Marshall
"The consequences of today’s opinion—consequences to which the Court seems oblivious—are not difficult to predict. Pregnant women denied the funding necessary to procure abortions will be restricted to two alternatives. First, they can carry the fetus to term—even though that route may result in severe injury or death to the mother, the fetus, or both. If that course appears intolerable, they can resort to self-induced abortions or attempt to obtain illegal abortions—not because bearing a child would be inconvenient, but because it is necessary in order to protect their health. {Footnote: Of course, some poor women will attempt to raise the funds necessary to obtain a lawful abortion. A court recently found that those who were fortunate enough to do so had to resort to "not paying rent or utility bills, pawning household goods, diverting food and clothing money, or journeying to another state to obtain lower rates or fraudulently use a relative’s insurance policy…. [S]ome patients were driven to theft." Women’s Health Services, Inc. v. Maher, 482 F. Supp. 725.} The result will not be to protect what the Court describes as "the legitimate governmental objective of protecting potential life," but to ensure the destruction of both fetal and maternal life. "There is another world ’out there,’ the existence of which the Court …either chooses to ignore or fears to recognize." Beal v. Doe (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting). In my view, it is only by blinding itself to that other world that the Court can reach the result it announces today."
A little further down:
"In this case, the Federal Government has taken upon itself the burden of financing practically all medically necessary expenditures. One category of medically necessary expenditure has been singled out for exclusion, and the sole basis for the exclusion is a premise repudiated for purposes of constitutional law in Roe v. Wade. The consequence is a devastating impact on the lives and health of poor women. I do not believe that a Constitution committed to the equal protection of the laws can tolerate this result. I dissent."

For the record, I'm both pro-choice and pro-life. But it's standard fare for the Neocons - they go after the symptoms, rather than the disease. So do us all a favor, Herr Norris, and the rest of you - focus more on the reasons behind the problem.

Or as Traditional Chinese Medicine tends to view it - go to the root of the illness, and fix that first. Till then, it needs to stay safe, legal and rare.

I'd be willing to wager, that if these people spent half the money they splooge on anti-evolution propaganda and gay marriage on reducing poverty, it would save a helluva lot more unborn children.

So stop spending all your dough on some fringe-theory scientific community that produces absolutely nothing in the way of contributions, and start taking care of the people that are forced to do this, via financial hardship.

And that's the way of it. You want change? Fix poverty, or at the very least, address it in a manner that reduces the need to seek out this procedure.

In short: fix the problem, not the blame. Stop judging from a distance.

Now get to it.