The ‘What If I Hadn’t Been Born?’ Question and Why it so Annoys Pro-Abortionists

By Dave Andrusko
National Right to Life

I didn’t know until today that Rachael Larimore is now the online managing editor of the Weekly Standard. In a former professional life she was a senior editor at Slate.

The news of her promotion reminded me of a column (and a follow up column) she once wrote for Slate titled, “What if I hadn’t been born” (here and here) which touched off a flurry of comments.

And because she is not one of us (Larimore describes herself as a “moderate on social issues), it made her observations all the more telling. She is talking about people, like herself, who could have been aborted (for a whole host of reasons, including being “unwanted”) but weren’t (also for a host of reasons). Larimore wrote

And I think the reason that we freak out the pro-choice movement so much is not that we’re woman-hating sex phobes. It’s that we fly in the face of the narrative about how awful life is for unwanted children. We give lie to the claim that a fetus is just a clump of tissue. We offer painfully real evidence of what happens if you don’t have an abortion.

Looking back let me offer a couple of summary points about those who found Larimore unpersuasive–and their wholly unpersuasive rebuttals.

In a colossal failure of moral imagination, the pro-abortion mind cannot get past how the unborn child doesn’t “look” like a baby, especially early in his or her development. But what I found fascinating, which was obvious given the topic of “what if I hadn’t been born,” is how easily the pro-abortion mind glides to the “proper“ conclusion.

Which is? Heck, if you weren’t born, you wouldn’t have known that you were obliterated along the way. And moms and dads will just transfer the love they would have bestowed on you to the next child (assuming there is a next child).
Proponents of this use the benign example of miscarriages which are, of course, unintentional.

Let’s double back to the first objection–“lookism.” Can you think of a more efficiently heartless way of lethally marginalizing whole categories of people than airily announcing, “They don’t look like us”? 

And, duh, what the unborn child looks like at, say, ten weeks, is what each and every one of us fortunate to be alive looked like when we were at that stage of fetal development. 

Folks, that’s what homo sapiens look like.

And as for point number two (miscarriages/accidents), Larimore writes, “But here’s the thing” …..

“Our government protects our right to our lives as much as it reasonably can—it’s illegal to murder or assault someone, and you can be severely punished for causing accidental deaths—but it can’t guarantee us life."

"Tragedies happen: People die in accidents, or prematurely from cancer. To suggest that society shouldn’t recognize a right to be born just because some pregnancies end in miscarriage is like saying the government shouldn’t protect us because we could get hit by a bus anyhow.”

National Right to Life article continues 

 

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Saving Babies With Down Syndrome Brings Out the Very Worst in Pro-Abortionists

By Dave Andrusko
National Right to Life

In light of an extremely troubling August 14 CBS News report documenting that virtually 100% of all babies prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome in Iceland are aborted, I wondered how long it would take for the usual suspects to blast proponents of Ohio’s S.B. 164, the Down Syndrome Non-Discrimination Act.  As it turned out, about three days.

First, a few words of background. A week ago today, according to Ohio Right to Life, 

“Parent advocates, medical professionals and others joined Ohio Right to Life with supporting testimony in favor of this important legislation in front of the Senate Health, Human Services, and Medicaid Committee.” 

In addition to Jessica Koehler of Ohio Right to Life, “four parent advocates testified on behalf of this legislation, along with two medical professionals, Dr. Dennis Sullivan, Director of the Center for Bioethics at Cedarville University, and Kelly Kuhns, RN, BSN, a labor and delivery nurse.”

So what would S.B. 164 do? Pure and simple it “seeks to prohibit abortions that are committed for the sole reason of a Down syndrome diagnosis.”

So what is a good “there never is a bad reason to abort” feminist to say? How about “Anti-Abortion Activists Are Using Down Syndrome Parents to Argue Against Women’s Rights”?

Writing for Slate.com, Christina Cauterucci’s opening paragraphs are semi-coherent and make an ever-so-slight nod in the direction of fairness.

For example, “Advocates contend that a society that encourages women to terminate fetuses with Down syndrome is one that ascribes less value to a child with Down syndrome, which leads to discrimination against people living with the condition.” Ah, yes.

In the next sentence, however, Cauterucci is off to the races. “In the U.S., anti-abortion leaders are hijacking this rhetoric of the disability rights movement to argue against women’s rights to choose their own future for their families and bodies.”

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Pro-Abortionists Resolute That Abortion is Trouble-Free and Devoid of Complications

By Dave Andrusko
Life News National Right to Life

Why do pro-abortionists come absolutely unhinged when the case is made that chemical abortions can be halted, provided the woman does not take the second of the two drugs that make up the chemical abortion regime (“RU-486” for short)?

Why must abortion reversal be (in their opinion) not just ineffective but dangerous?

These questions came to mind as I read, “Abortion ‘reversal’: the latest sham from anti-choice activists trying to end women’s rights,” written by Renee Bracey Sherman and Daniel Grossman and published Wednesday in the Guardian.

One obvious answer is money. The last Guttmacher Institute report concluded that for the year 2014, almost a third of the abortions performed (about 29.4% of the total) were chemical abortions (or, as Guttmacher likes to call them, “early medication abortions”). That was an increase of almost 14% in three years and no doubt the percentage is even higher now.

Even for the likes of the $1.3 billion Planned Parenthood, which bills itself as a “non-profit,” that is serious money.

Another answer is that it is an article of pro-abortion faith that anything that puts the slightest bump in the road leading to abortion must be “junk science.” It has to be or else women (and girls) might question whether abortion is good for anyone, their babies or themselves.

Which is why right out of the box Sherman and Grossman write, 

“For years, the anti-abortion movement has popularized the myth that patients regret their abortion, or are somehow coerced into having the procedure before they are ready.”

This is a “myth.” That unborn children by the 20th week will feel excruciating pain as they are torn apart is a “myth.” It’s a “myth” that parents have any useful contribution to make to their minor daughter’s abortion decision.

It’s a “myth” that the use of sharp instruments in the area of a woman’s reproductive organs the abortionist is associated with an increase in premature and very premature births.

It’s a “myth” that there is a clear association between having an induced abortion and increasing the risk for breast cancer, although the biological basis for that conclusion is obvious. And so on and so on.

Pro-abortionists must deny that there are any negative aftershocks–physical, psychological, or emotional–from abortion. To admit even one is to concede that killing your unborn child may not be the trouble-free “solution” the Abortion Industry advertises it to be. And that could spell serious trouble.

Website: National Right to Life