Who won this argument about abortion?

I was cleaning out some old emails and found these exchanges. Rather than just trash the information, I thought: "Why not post it for you guys just in case you run into another situation like it?"

INITIAL QUESTION ASKED BY SOMEONE ON A PRIVATE LIST OF PROFESSIONALS on 12/31/08:

"Why, generally speaking, are those who favor abortion also opposed to the death penalty?"

FROM "LEFTY":

There's actually no relationship between the two. Abortion relieves a woman of an unwanted pregnancy. The death penalty kills a human being. (A fetus, on the other hand, is not a human being.)

I'm basically against the death penalty, except for MAJOR CRIMES. These aren't back alley murders, but really major crimes, ones in which the death penalty would actually be a deterrent. An example: if the CEO of Exxon had been executed after the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster, every oil tanker in the world would have immediately been made double (or triple) hulled, to prevent a similar catastrophe in the future. Now, THAT'S a real deterrent!

FROM ME:

Science and Abortion: The Fetus Is Human
https://sites.google.com/a/georgiasouthern.edu/etmcmull/science-and-abortion-the-fetus-is-human [link updated 5/25/13]

FROM "LEFTY":

Oh, c'mon.

For starters, the man is a professor of history. He is not a medical person, or a medical ethicist. I could not see that he has any connections with the medical field at all, although the article does reflect a connection with James Dobson.

Sorry, there's nothing there.

FROM ME:

The article was written by a professor of history who was commenting on and discussing the work of Dr. Lejeune who has an M.D. from the University of Paris, and a Ph.D. in genetics at the Sorbonne, Faculty of Science...here's more about him:

www.physiciansforlife.org/content/view/467/43/

FROM "LEFTY":

According to the article the courts have not ruled on the cited case. So what do we have? An embryo, which is not such a unique phenomena because it happens millions of times a day. It is more of a biological process, or the result of a biological process.

And yet, there are other biological processes that also occur with about the same frequency. For example (as repugnant as it may seem - but true), a cancer, or a tumor. Neither of them, in the short run anyway, can live outside their host. Therefore, it would seem, that at least in the short run, they are both nothing more than biological occurrences.

(Then, from the medical ethicist.)

The cancer analogy is interesting. The similarity between them points to exactly what we've been arguing about -- they are both unique, they both grow from single cells, they both can be very complex. So uniqueness, origin, and complexity aren't sufficient for moral status. Rather, I'd argue it's the ability to feel pain, and be conscious of that pain, that makes a difference. Cancers don't have that. Embryos don't. Being able to feel pain isn't the same as being conscious of that pain.

FROM ME:

From Dr. Ranalli's report (he is a neurologist at the University of Toronto and Advisory Board member of the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research.)

By every measure, the fetus from 16-19 weeks reacts to a painful stimulus in a manner consistent with the perception of pain. Support for Dr. Glover's position came from Canadian researcher Dr. Ken Craig who has spent over 15 years studying pain in premature babies at the University of British Columbia...In fact, as revealed by other work, the late second-trimester fetus, like the similar-aged premature newborn, likely develops the capacity to be more sensitive to pain than a full-term baby, or even an adult. This is because the inhibitory, pain-modifying network lags in embryologic development behind the establishment of the pain system.

www.nrlc.org/news/2000/NRL09/ranalli.html

THE END (AND IT WAS).

Liberals clinically mad, concludes top psychiatrist

Eminent doctor makes case leftist ideology is a mental disorder

Dr. Rossiter says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:

• creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization;
• satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;
• augmenting primitive feelings of envy;
• rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.

Read more

Barbarians at the gates...of the White House

As the stomach turns...

Watch it here

The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11

Whenever Muslims charge that the war on terror is really a war against Islam, Americans hasten to assure them they are wrong. Yet as Dinesh D’Souza argues in this powerful and timely polemic, these Muslim critics of America are right--there really is a war against Islam. Only this war is not being waged by Christian conservatives bent on a moral crusade to impose democracy abroad, as many liberals maintain, but by the American cultural left, which has for years been vigorously exporting its domestic war against religion and traditional morality to the rest of the world.

By the “cultural left” D’Souza does not mean all liberals or even all Democrats, but the militant secularists, feminists and gay activists who make up the left wing of the Democratic party, along with their allies in Hollywood, the academy, the antiwar movement, and the human rights establishment. D’Souza contends that the cultural left is responsible for 9/11 in two ways: by fostering a decadent and depraved American culture that angers and repulses other societies--especially traditional and religious ones; and by promoting, at home and abroad, an anti-American attitude that blames America for all the problems of the world.

Why did 9/11 occur? D’Souza traces the roots to the Khomeini revolution, the first regime to target America as the Great Satan. He documents the role of the Carter administration and its left-wing allies in displacing the Shah and consolidating Khomeini’s rule. D’Souza also shows that after the Cold War the radical Muslims were fighting to overthrow their local governments, what they termed the “near enemy.” But then Bin Laden and others got the idea that perhaps the United States—the “far enemy”—was even more vulnerable than the near enemy. Starting in the mid-1990s, Islamic radicals tested their theory of American weakness by launching a series of strikes against American targets, such as the Khobar Tower facility in Saudi Arabia, the two U.S. embassies in Africa, and the U.S.S. Cole. During this period the Clinton administration was focused on its own political and

D’Souza shows that Islamic anti-Americanism is not merely a reaction to U.S. foreign policy but is also rooted in a revulsion against what Muslims perceive to be the atheism and moral depravity of American popular culture. “They don’t hate us for our freedom,” D’Souza writes, “They hate us for how we use our freedom.” Muslims and other traditional people around the world allege that American values are being imposed on their societies, and these values undermine religious belief, weaken the traditional family, and corrupt the innocence of children. Muslim fears are largely justified, but it is not “America” that is doing this to them, it is the cultural left. What traditional societies consider repulsive and immoral, the cultural left considers progressive and liberating.

Taking issue with those on the right who speak of a “clash of civilizations,” D’Souza argues that the war on terror is really a war for the hearts and minds of traditional Muslims—and traditional peoples everywhere. The only way to win the struggle with radical Islam is to convince traditional Muslims that America is on their side. To prove this the U.S. must allow Muslim countries to defend Muslim interests and live according to their own moral precepts. Moreover, America’s leaders must contest the notion that liberal depravity equals American depravity. If America were to proclaim itself a Judeo-Christian society and stand up for the principles of traditional morality worldwide, this would greatly weaken the threat posed by radical Islam.

We are accustomed to thinking of the war on terror and the culture war as two distinct and separate struggles. D’Souza shows that they are really one and the same. Conservatives must recognize that the left is now allied with the Islamic radicals in a combined effort to defeat Bush’s war on terror. So Bush and the right are fighting not only a war against radical Islam, but also a political “war against the war” in America. A whole new strategy is needed to fight both wars. “In order to defeat the Islamic radicals abroad,” D’Souza writes, “we must defeat the enemy at home.”