The prolife blogosphere has been abuzz since shortly before the Superbowl about a prolife ad that NBC refused to air. The ad used Barack Obama as an example of a person who might have been aborted, but wasn't. (They've done this such notables as Mozart and Beethovan. I like the example of Hitler, but I guess that's not the point.)
It's obvious why NBC refused to air the ad: respect for the POTUS, a person who is pro choice, and who has not agreed to allow his name or life story to be used in a pro life ad. Heather, however, has a unique take on this:
Our ad does not suggest that Barack Obama is pro-life. Instead, our ad presents nothing but facts. President Obama, like every human being, began as an unborn child. Because he was born, he was able to become the President of the United States.
CNN and others simply don't like the obvious conclusion of our ad - there was no ‘choice' for abortion back in 1961. Thankfully, we had laws then safeguarding unborn children -- laws that protected the life of a future president who tragically is unwilling to fight for those same protections today.
That is disingenuous at best. You are using the name and life story of a living person, the POTUS no less, to support a viewpoint he doesn't hold. We don't know how Beethoven might have felt about abortion, and he's not alive to tell us. We know exactly how Obama feels about abortion, and to suggest that this ad would do anything less than imply- strongly- that Obama is prolife, is to lie.
If you have to lie to make your point, you don't have one.
Has President Obama been so weak in stating a Pro Choice position as President that the President would not be able to over come the Superbowl ad?
ReplyDeleteIf a black person is both against affirmative action and also benefited from affirmative action, journalist should not be allowed to state the irony?
The ad's implied argument is that since embryos (I'll use this term to indiscriminantly include fetuses, zygotes, blastulas, conceptuses, etc.) become persons, and since persons have potential, abortion is immoral because it prevents people from fulfilling their unfilfilled potential. That is just about the easist argument to shoot holes through:
ReplyDeleteIf killing people is bad because they have unfulfilled potential, wouldn't it be more wrong to kill someone 20 years old as opposed to someone 100 years old, because the 20-year old is pretty likely to have more unfulfilled potential than the 100-year old?
If an embryo has unfulfilled potential, so does what immediately precedes it. Go backwards through prenatal development. This therefore implies that any spermatozoan and ovum have unfulfilled potential. Wouldn't anything that prevents them from meeting the ovum from being fertilized be just as bad as abortion? Abstinence does this, by the way.
If people are so concerned about preventing the embryo from fulfilling its potential, wouldn't forced parenthood prevent the woman from fulfilling her potential?
Just some questions regarding the "potential argument".
You address an abortion argument head on.
ReplyDeleteIs abortion a choice, life (or potential life), or responsibility issue?
The fact of the matter is, a grouping of cells is not more important than the woman necessary to incubate them. "prolife" could also be called "pro forced incubation" or "life is unimportant- except in the 9 months it takes to support itself".
ReplyDeleteProchoice is just that- pro choice. I support a woman's right to choose: to choose to carry to term, to adopt or to terminate. That simple.
If you were really paying attention, you would have noticed that several commentors mentioned health issues, myself included.
So you tell me, anonymous, should I die so that a fetus can have the chance to incubate not quite long enough to live? If so, why shouldn't the father be put to death as well? After all, it's his "responsibility", too.
I did not know that birth was a parental death sentence.
ReplyDeleteYour asked “should I die so that a fetus can have the chance to incubate” and be born?
Is the consequences of birth “forced incubation” or parental death?
Your asked “should I die so that a fetus can have the chance to incubate” and be born?
ReplyDeleteNo.