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A Response to Jill Stanek

1/9/2015

10 Comments

 
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Yesterday, (Jan. 8, 2015) pro-life columnist Jill Stanek posted an article to her blog in which she criticized Abolish Human Abortion (AHA) for their opposition to the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.  In that article, Mrs. Stanek presented the argument that incremental legislation like the Pain Capable Act should be supported because all pro-life legislation is incremental to some extent or another.  I responded to Mrs. Stanek's claims by pointing out that the argument is really over moral vs. immoral incrementation.  Here is the full response which I posted as a comment on Mrs. Stanek's blog:

Mrs. Stanek,

I appreciate your stand for the right to life of prenatal children, but I think that you have misunderstood the arguments against incremental legislation.  The argument has never been that incrementation is itself immoral but rather that the type of incrementation being pursued by many pro-life leaders is immoral.  Groups like AHA, Personhood USA and the Personhood Alliance recognize that state level personhood amendments are incremental.  They simply do not view this type of incrementation as immoral.  

The state level amendments allow are simply a way for each state to ban all abortions within its jurisdiction, and the local initiatives currently being pursued by the Personhood Alliance provide means for individual municipalities to ban all abortions within their jurisdictions.  This is a moral form of incrementation, for its implementation would not involve a failure to defend the right to life of those to  whom the leaders of the individual states or municipalities have a moral obligation.  

Bills like the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, on the other hand, do involve a failure to defend the right to life of those to whom our leaders owe a moral obligation.  I am certain that you agree that political leaders have such an obligation to uphold the right to life of every individual human being within their jurisdictions both because that obligation is dictated by God and because it is recognized in the Constitution.  Given this fact, then, it naturally follows that any incremental bill which fails to meet this obligation is immoral.  The question is not whether a given bill is incremental or not but rather whether the incrementation sought to be implemented by the bill is moral or immoral.

You made reference to a few different analogies in your article, but I think that the situation which currently exists in our nation can be better understood through a direct correlation.  Instead of comparing abortion to the holocaust or slavery, let's just take the current crisis and all of the efforts to fight it and simply change the age of the children involved.  All of us in the pro-life community agree that their is no moral difference between a prenatal child and a child of any other age, so changing the ages of the children involved will not have any effect on moral arguments.  

For the sake of argument, therefore, let's change the legality of abortion at any time up to birth around 40 weeks to a law permitting the killing of children at any time up until their fourth birthday.  Similarly, let's change the Partial Birth Abortion Ban to a ban forbidding the killing of a child on their fourth birthday even if the fourth anniversary the actual minute of their birth has not yet arrived.  We could also view the informed consent laws to laws requiring the parents of children under the age of four to be given information regarding the killing of their child before they make the decision to have their child killed, and we could even require them to wait 24 or 48 or 72 hours after receiving that information before they follow through with their decision.  And since you mentioned the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in particular, let's go ahead and view this act as a bill proposing that no child can be legally killed by his parents after the age of 2 instead of the age of 4.  

Now, in this type of situation, would you say that changing the age at which it becomes illegal for a parent to kill his child from the age of 4 to the age of 2 constitutes an achievement of the government's responsibility to meet its moral obligation to defend the right to life of all human beings within its jurisdiction?  

The AHA and the personhood movement have answered this question with a resounding, No!  But I am curious as to your thoughts on this correlation.  Would you support a bill that changed the age for legally killing children from 4 to 2?  Would you vote for a man seeking the presidency who said that he thinks parents should only be allowed to kill their children up until the age of 2?  Would you consider someone pro-life if they defended such a bill as much as you have defended the Pain Capable Act?

Please understand. I am not saying that I do not consider you to be pro-life.  I simply think that your passion has prevented you from understanding those with whom you disagree, and I think that if you would take a moment to consider how you would respond in the above correlation you may have a better understanding of why the AHA takes the position that it has taken.

You can read more about my fight against abortion at the Personhood Initiative website.
10 Comments
Jill Stanek link
1/9/2015 03:20:52 am

Bill,

“Moral” vs “immoral” incrementalism? Who defines that?

Were the midwives immoral for lying to Pharaoh to save just some of the boys he had ordered killed?

Was Rahab immoral for lying to save the Israelite spies?

Were Jonathan and Michel immoral to lie to Saul, their father and king, to save just one guy, David?

Were the wise men immoral to disobey Herod, sealing the fate of up to thousands of baby boys?

Was Corrie ten Boom immoral for hiding just a few Jews?

Was Irena Sendler immoral for hiding children in coffins?

Is it moral to try to save babies at one abortion clinic and not all 739?

Why is the circle of children I am trying to save not as moral as the circle of children you’re trying to save? You can’t save them all either. The percentage of abortions committed in the U.S. is small compared to the percentage of abortions committed around the world. How immoral it is to let the babies in China, France, and Russia die.

What if you can stop abortion but not stop women from taking the Pill? Isn’t it immoral to let those babies die?

Playing God can get quite tricky, Bill. That’s why I let God be God and simply pursue justice where I can.

Reply
Brian
1/9/2015 04:04:04 am

A clear and measured response from Jill. Balls in your court, Bill. I'm especially interested to hear a rejoinder to the fact that you can't save all the babies either.

Reply
Bill Fortenberry
1/9/2015 04:50:18 am

Thank you for commenting, Jill. I will do my best to answer your questions, and I hope that we can discuss this civilly.

Your first question about the definition of moral vs. immoral incrementalism is easy to answer. God's Law is the ultimate standard of morality. Therefore, any form of incrementation that fails to conform to His Law is immoral. The claim being made by AHA and the personhood movement is that the Pain Capable Act fails to conform to God's Law.

As I stated in the article, I am assuming that you agree that our governments have a moral imperative arising from both the Law of God and the Constitution which requires them to defend the right to life of every individual human being within their jurisdictions. This is the measure that I am using for my conclusion that the Pain Capable Act is an immoral form of incrementation. This act fail to conform to that moral standard therefore it is immoral.

Your questions about your list of examples are also easy to answer. Each of those individuals are to be judged as either moral or immoral in their actions based on whether their actions conform to the Law of God. On those grounds, I would say that:

The actions of the midwives were moral, for they protected every life that fell within their jurisdiction.

It was immoral for Rahab, Jonathan and Michal to lie in order accomplish their goals for lying is condemned in God's Law without exception. These three should have sought some other means of accomplishing their very noble goals.

It was not immoral for the wise men to disobey Herod, for the simple reason that they were not subject to his commands. Their actions did not seal the deaths of thousands of baby boys. That was a result of the actions of Herod, and he is likely suffering the punishment for those actions even now.

Corrie ten Boom acted morally when she saved every Jew that the Lord brought to her to be saved. Unlike the government, Ms. ten Boom had no moral obligation to defend the right to life of every Jew within a geographic area. That obligation fell to the German government.

I'm afraid that I'm not as familiar the particulars with Irena Sendler's actions, but I believe that she would fall under the same category as Corrie ten Boom.

Reply
Bill Fortenberry
1/9/2015 04:50:56 am

This brings us to your question about saving babies at one clinic instead of at all 729. The answer to this question depends on what individual or organization is doing the saving. If you were to ask if it is moral for Planned Parenthood, to save the babies from one of their clinics but nor all of them, then the answer would be, No. Planned Parenthood has a moral obligation to protect the lives of the babies in every single one of their clinics. They cannot stand before God and claim to be innocent just because they saved the lives of some of those that they were planning to kill.

Similarly, if Herod decided to save the lives of some of the baby boys under 2 years of age, his actions would still be immoral because he was responsible for protecting the lives of all of the baby boys within his jurisdiction.

But if we are talking about an individual pro-life activist, then saving the lives of all the babies at a single abortion clinic would be a very moral action indeed. The individual activist does not have a moral responsibility to save the lives of every single baby killed in all the abortion clinics of the nation. They are only responsible for defending the lives of the babies that God brings to them to be defended.

I hope that you can see the difference here. Each person or organization is only morally responsible for those things that God's Law requires of them, and the governments of our great nation are morally responsible for the defense of the right to life of every human being within their jurdictions. Any law which fails to meet that responsibility is therefore an immoral law.

You suggested that I am playing God, but that would only be the case if I said that my law was the standard of morality. I am not playing God. I am simply proclaiming the Law which He has already written for us in His Word.

Reply
Juda link
1/9/2015 06:00:39 am

If we agree to things that say" and then you can kill" we are NOT on God's side.

Jill none of the people you mentioned people did things that said and then you can kill did they? But our laws that say don't kill before or after such and such a date for such and such a reason says that it is OK to kill in OTHER situations.

Reply
YYNJ
1/9/2015 05:54:08 am

Jill, people have been telling you for years that this has nothing to do with incrementalism. So at this point, I think it's safe to say you're being dishonest. This has always been about moral vs immoral incrementalism, compromised vs uncompromised incrementalism.

This has to do with authorizing the killing of some children in exchange for the protection of others. Read the legislation and you will see that it specifically goes out of its way to say it's okay to kill some children and that the legislation will still keep it legal to kill them. The best analogy is a terrorist. If a terrorist was going to kill his hostages, it would be wrong to negotiate with him and authorize him the killing of some in exchange for the release of others.

Looking forward to your responses to Bill's questions about if the killing of children was legal at later ages.

Reply
Tom Hoefling link
1/9/2015 01:08:30 pm

If one is to set out to restore our legal codes in America to a truly "pro-life" status, the first thing that must be done is to purge every statute that grants a governmental license to kill any classification of human persons, at any stage of development.

Sadly, whether you are talking about the U.S. Code, or the codes of the several states, virtually all such "and then you can kill the baby" laws have been put there by "Republican" "pro-life" legislators and signed into law by "Republican" "pro-life" chief executives.

And what is the ongoing primary goal of the "pro-life movement"? To put more such laws on the books!

Truth be told, the Utilitarian arguments for these lawless laws are false. Not only are these lawless laws immoral and unconstitutional, they are quite obviously doomed to failure. They do not "save some," as advertised. In fact, they doom all. Why? Because they surrender, each and every time, right up front, the only moral, constitutional and legal arguments against the practice of human abortion: 1) The intrinsic nature and value of the individual person, made as they are in the image and likeness of our Creator, and endowed with the unalienable right to live, and 2) The requirement of the law of God, and the laws of nature, and the U.S. Constitution, and the constitutions of all of the fifty states in this Union, that all persons be EQUALLY protected in their supreme right, their right to life.

"No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law."

"No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

"You shall not murder."

What part of the above are folks failing to understand?

Reply
Jay Rogers link
1/25/2015 11:02:16 pm

It's frustrating to listen to Jill because she doesn't understand the positions of AHA and Personhood. They are slightly different BTW, but both agree that incremental change FOLLOWS a call for total abolition. Total abolition never follows a call for gradual change. It's a truth in philosophy and social science called: "dialecticism." We will move people toward the center by advocating truth. We can't convince people of truth by advocating half-truth. The difference with Personhood is that we agree we can support some "Personhood complaint" legislation that does not end all abortion as long as the language is not morally compromised. Most AHA people don't agree with that. But we agree that our strategy is not to move incrementally and hope that a total abolition will follow in people's minds. Compromise just breeds compromise -- especially when exceptions to murder are codified in the letter of the law.

Reply
Toby Harmon
2/14/2015 12:38:23 am

One can only conclude that Jill is being dishonest. As Abolitionists have explained ad nauseum our position and how Jill and others like her misrepresent it, and then Bill explained it very clearly here, yet Jill fires back with the exact same straw man retorts she began with. Jill, you are either incapable of basic comprehension (and I don't believe this is the case) or in your overwhelming pride you cannot proceed in any other way to defend your position except to knowingly misrepresent ours. I encourage you to honestly examine your own motives here and turn away from pride and the fear of men and adopt a Godly and righteous position regarding child-sacrifice.

Reply
Raynard
2/14/2015 07:50:52 am

Someone please get Mr. Harmon a box of Kleenex for his big tears that no one understands his movement. It is the fundamental cry of all small, fringe movements that they are misunderstood but what is unique about AHA is they rely so heavily on the "movement vs. organization" meme that the actual movement becomes a wax nose. Depending on who is speaking you can bend that proboscis whichever way is needed at the moment. I can't think of any other movement currently active that is more quarrelsome or has alienated more people that would naturally align with them ideologically. Ring me when even one nationally known and respected pro-life leader starts flogging for the AHA cause.

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    Bill Fortenberry is a Christian philosopher and historian in Birmingham, AL.  Bill's work has been cited in several legal journals, and he has appeared as a guest on shows including The Dr. Gina Show, The Michael Hart Show, and Real Science Radio.

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