Monday, May 16, 2011

This comment was too much for The Abortion Gang

Those familiar with the abolitionist movement and other things related to the practice of human abortion may recall the controversial billboards put up for a short time in Chicago (and other places by extension).

Images like these:

Unsurprisingly, these billboards caused no small stir among those who make it their business to take issue with facts that are inconvenient or damaging to the pro-abortion position. One Dennis Byrne from the Chicago Tribune figured this out and wrote about it, which prompted a response from a blog known as The Abortion Gang, in which "Kaitlyn" plays the race card early and often.

I left a comment which they published, Kaitlyn responded, and I replied, but strangely enough, they chose not to publish my 2nd comment. One can only guess as to their motivation, why they refuse to publish intelligent and rational critiques of their position.



Here is the comment I left, which was not published:

Hello Kaitlyn,

Thank you very much for the interaction. I appreciate your time.
Also, I'd like to clarify something from my previous comment - I wasn't necessarily referring to you personally as "O Powerful Helpful White Master"; it was illustrative to achieve my point that this view implicitly treats black people like children to be taken care of their entire lives. Obviously I have no idea of your ethnicity, just as you don't know anything about me. So I hope you'll understand it for what it was.
I also hope that, in the future, if you want to accuse someone of being racist as you accused me, you'll offer some evidence thereof. It's a serious charge, so one would hope that you have some reason to say it other than some sort of knee-jerk reaction to disagreement. It's as if you're intolerant of dissenting points of view. Are you?




I have a few other reactions to your comment.
I believe by telling women what they can and should do with their bodies you are asserting that women are not capable of making the decision themselves
If I were to change the topic of this sentence into:
I believe by telling men what they can and should do with their bodies, that they are not permitted to violently kidnap others and hold them for ransom, you are asserting that men are not capable of making the decision themselves.
Would you be OK with it?
No, of course not - this sentence from you expresses a false idea. You DO make and expect moral judgments; you just don't want abortion to be judged wrong.
I have to ask, though - how do you know that abortion is morally OK? Do you have some moral standard by which you are capable of making that judgment? You go on to say: "until you’re God, you don’t get to". That's just the thing! God most definitely is pro-life and anti-abortion. There is no good argument to be made from Jesus Himself or the Bible that abortion is acceptable.
Rather, the consistent and whole message in what God has said is that God decides who lives and dies. He delegates authority on that decision in certain situations, but those situations never include the summary execution of someone who has done nothing wrong, regardless of their age, whether they're 100 years old or 100 hours old.

I don't have to be God to know that (nor do I claim to be God; let's be clear). I simply have to read what God said and listen to it.

We do not need to examine black women’s choices.
This is a racist statement.
We need to examine ALL choices made by ALL people, in the light of what we know to be morally correct. To single out black women is (either) to belittle them by removing the same standard of accountability (much like we do with small children who fart at inopportune times or spontaneously blurt out inappropriate things) and/or to put them on a pedestal on which you don't put anyone else.
No, black women are created in the image of God just like everyone else is, and all are answerable to God.


Would you like to examine high rates of poverty amongst women of color?
As mentioned above, I would be happy to.
However, not everyone has the same skill set, focus and interest, and gifting. I do not believe that you would fault the 19C abolitionists of chattel slavery for focusing on one severe injustice at the expense of the other things they could have spent their lives trying to remedy, such as poverty in London's lower classes or child sweatshop labor, etc. Similarly, we abolitionists of human abortion focus on the severe injustice of human abortion, where millions of innocent lives are snuffed out without so much as due process of law.


Would you like to examine the lack of access women of color have to safe, effective, affordable birth control?
This ignores the reality of Planned Parenthood's focus, as alluded to in the last comment. I do not believe that this is a very important criticism, for that reason.


A billboard in NYC had a picture of a black girl and it read, “The most unsafe place for an African American child is in the womb.” Why?
I'm not sure what's difficult to understand about that. It's unsafe because that's where many more black human beings die than anywhere else.
What could be clearer?


who is doing that aborting?
It's usually a collaborative effort.
But we aim to combine the highest level of academic thought concerning abortion with the most down-to-earth acts of compassion towards those confused and victimized by the pro-abortion mentality prevalent in our culture. We also desire to meet the needs of women facing unwanted pregnancies with spiritual, emotional, financial, and medical assistance.
The women are generally victimised by the system and the money-hungry abortician(s). And they are continuing their long history of targeting black people. We will not stand by and be silent. Thus the billboards. I invite you to join us in welcoming the truth of what the billboards say, whatever your ethnicity and gender. Truth is truth, and millions of black babies dead today means a smaller black population tomorrow.


They are set to divide communities against each other
You've demonstrated nothing of the sort in either your article nor your comment, and as I've shown, it is the pro-abortion side that does the most injustice to black women by killing millions of them and by victimising the rest. You're letting it happen, but I invite you to say no.

(Please leave any comments at the cross-post at the Abolitionist Society blog.)