In Governor Cuomo’s defense, he isn’t the first pro-abortion leader to throw up his hands in frustration at the advance of the pro-life cause and simply wish we’d go away. The pro-life movement, much to the consternation of abortion supporters, is thriving. It is getting younger and larger. Hundreds of thousands brave cold temperatures for the March for Life every year. There were even 40,000 marching for life in France last week! Yes, that France. Legislatures enact more pro-life laws than ever before. And abortion clinics are closing and abortion rates are dropping.
This must all be very frustrating for abortion supporters. Pro-lifers aren’t supposed to be here anymore. We are supposed to have given up. And yet we are on the march.
Governor Cuomo’s intemperate call for the banishment of pro-lifers from New York state is the sort of outburst that one should expect from a frustrated abortion lobby with no real arguments to make. Science is on our side. Public opinion is increasingly on our side – and particularly among the next generation. So rather than debate, abortion supporters are increasingly turning to their final 2 defenses: (1) Trying to silence pro-life speech, and (2) Attacking conscience.
When you can’t reason YOU TYPE IN ALL CAPS! Or if you’re an abortion advocate in the Texas legislature you attempt to scream so loud that you prevent an elected legislature – temporarily – from doing its job. This is a grown up version of the tactics pro-life student groups are all too familiar with. It’s akin to abortion supporters vandalizing prolife student groups’ fliers and memorials. But, often it’s the universities themselves that do the censoring. A Washington community college even echoed Governor Cuomo, telling a pro-life student group that they could not distribute literature on campus because “Washington is a pro-choice state.”
New York City has been one of the “leaders” in attacking pregnancy resource centers for simply offering an alternative to abortion to women – trying to unconstitutionally force them to speak the government’s own message against themselves. New Mayor De Blasio has pledged to continue Bloomberg’s effort to wipe out these nonprofit pregnancy resource centers in a city where 41% of pregnancies end in abortion. In a scene right out of 1984, the IRS has tried to compel prolife groups to cease any protests of Planned Parenthood as a condition of tax exemption. And Ohio even directly attacked pro-life political speech, imposing (until overturned by courts) substantial fines for “false statements” on the Susan B Anthony List because it dared to tell the truth that Obamacare funds abortions. SHUT UP!, they explain.
And when even attempts to silence pro-life speech fail, they try to go deeper, attacking even our conscience. In New York and New Jersey hospitals have tried to illegally compel pro-life nurses to assist in abortions in violation of their conscience. New York City has made it more difficult for pro-life students to opt out of abortion training in medical school. Vanderbilt even tried to make agreement to participate in abortion a part of the admission application. And while the vast majority of pharmacies will stock and sell Plan B, the existence of even a handful who choose not to do so for personal moral reasons is reason for protests by abortion advocates against those businesses – with participation by a governor – and state action to stamp out that objection.
Why aren’t abortion supporters content to have abortion on demand but with participation left to individual conscience? Because darkness hates the light. The existence of intelligent, ethical medical professionals and other people of conscience who refuse to participate in abortion reminds their soul that the taking of an innocent human life is wrong.
You may have heard about Planned Parenthood’s “I Had An Abortion” t-shirt campaign. The stated goal of this campaign, complete with ads with women sporting these shirts in major womens’ magazines, was to eliminate the stigma of abortion. It’s not enough to simply establish a constitutional right to abortion. They now demand its acceptance as morally right.
This is no surprise. Those perpetrating great evils always need to justify themselves by silencing those who speak the truth. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln delivered his Cooper Union Speech in New York City concerning the desperate claims of the proponents of the great dehumanizing moral evil of his day:
What will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly – done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated – we must place ourselves avowedly with them. [Laws prohibiting speech opposing abortion] must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.
Pro-lifers should be encouraged when Governor Cuomo outrageously proclaims that they have no home in New York. This is not the rhetoric of a winning argument. These are the last desperate gasps for breath of an ideology of death.
Casey Mattox is senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom.
I don’t know, this response to Cuomo, who literally has no power over this issue, sounds more like a scared dog barking loudest? Let’s review:
“The pro-life movement, much to the consternation of abortion supporters, is thriving. It is getting younger and larger. Hundreds of thousands brave cold temperatures for the March for Life every year. There were even 40,000 marching for life in France last week! Yes, that France. Legislatures enact more pro-life laws than ever before. And abortion clinics are closing and abortion rates are dropping.”
We’re in a post Occupy world and you’re still bringing up one-day marches? And what about France? 40,000 is less than 0.1% of the population. What am I supposed to with that number? You can’t even fill a soccer stadium with that, so it sounds like you’re laughing at France’s pro-life movement.
Re: Legislatures, now we’re talking. Except those laws aren’t really the kind of blanket ban that pro-life people want to see and instead are nickel-and-diming loopholes that squeeze clinics out of existence (incidentally taking out a lot of women’s medical care along with it, but that is clearly not a priority). In other words, if the peons won’t oppose abortion then we’ll oppose it for them, on our terms. That’s the kind of top-down leadership that won the day in Vietnam and Iraq.
“Governor Cuomo’s intemperate call for the banishment of pro-lifers from New York state is the sort of outburst that one should expect from a frustrated abortion lobby with no real arguments to make. Science is on our side. Public opinion is increasingly on our side – and particularly among the next generation. So rather than debate, abortion supporters are increasingly turning to their final 2 defenses: (1) Trying to silence pro-life speech, and (2) Attacking conscience.”
I don’t know why you’re bringing up science or public opinion either, as no government entity, elected or otherwise, responds to them. If the pro-life cause is prevailing (and it’s not, not really), it’s because money is pushing it. Meanwhile, science is convinced that humans are causing potentially catastrophic climate change. Are you celebrating the march of anti-pollution laws in this country? No because you can’t find any.
“When you can’t reason YOU TYPE IN ALL CAPS! Or if you’re an abortion advocate in the Texas legislature you attempt to scream so loud that you prevent an elected legislature – temporarily – from doing its job.”
Can we stop whining about filibusters and other parliamentary procedures that everyone uses and that are perfectly legal, when we’re bragging about how we’re using those same legal procedures to get what we want in other venues?
“This is a grown up version of the tactics pro-life student groups are all too familiar with. It’s akin to abortion supporters vandalizing prolife student groups’ fliers and memorials. But, often it’s the universities themselves that do the censoring. A Washington community college even echoed Governor Cuomo, telling a pro-life student group that they could not distribute literature on campus because ‘Washington is a pro-choice state.'”
Do you know what the response to this is going to be? “At least we don’t blow up pro-life clinics, and at least we don’t shoot pro-lifers while they’re in church.” Stop using anecdotes.
Re: De Blasio:
“When Planned Parenthood came under attack from Republicans in Congress, Bill de Blasio fought to protect the vital organization’s funding and reputation. He joined with allies across the country to condemn the right wing’s smear tactics. As a City Council member, Bill de Blasio co-sponsored land- mark legislation to establish protective zones around reproductive health centers, and prevent harassment of women using their services. -De Blasio Dot Com”
Okay I see what this is: Pro-abortion people are under the idea that abortion is a vital health procedure, right? So it makes sense for them to try to make it available to people, same as surgeons and pediatricians and other things. The issue here is he wants to expand the number of health clinics that provide abortions to low-income areas of the city, and to make it so that pro-life people cannot harrass people entering and exiting them as they are wont to do sometimes. Makes sense. Would you tolerate JWs harrassing people giving blood transfusions? More importantly, would the average person tolerate that?
Nowhere in De Blasio’s website does it mention crushing non-abortion clinics. Now, you might have evidence that this is going to happen anyway, but pro-abortion people are just going to point out that this was not a campaign promise by De Blasio. So you’re fibbing pretty hard here.
“And while the vast majority of pharmacies will stock and sell Plan B, the existence of even a handful who choose not to do so for personal moral reasons is reason for protests by abortion advocates against those businesses – with participation by a governor – and state action to stamp out that objection.”
Plan B, so now we’re in fanatical territory that does not even have the support of an otherwise moderately anti-abortion public. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx) So now which is it? Either the public is on your side or they’re to be brushed aside when inconvenient?
“Why aren’t abortion supporters content to have abortion on demand but with participation left to individual conscience? Because darkness hates the light. The existence of intelligent, ethical medical professionals and other people of conscience who refuse to participate in abortion reminds their soul that the taking of an innocent human life is wrong.”
Abortion is not necessarily on-demand in many places, and regardless, the vast majority of abortions (approx. 80-85% according to CDC figures from 2004, the latest that are apparently available) occur before the second trimester, and hardly any occur during the third trimester. By the way, even given that, the incidence of abortion in this country is still way too high for any kind of chest-thumping. You’re still very far from achieving your goal.
“You may have heard about Planned Parenthood’s “I Had An Abortion” t-shirt campaign. The stated goal of this campaign, complete with ads with women sporting these shirts in major womens’ magazines, was to eliminate the stigma of abortion. It’s not enough to simply establish a constitutional right to abortion. They now demand its acceptance as morally right.”
Yeah, and? What’re you doing to change their minds? Nothing. So while you’re in here celebrating a victory that has not even come close to manifesting itself (we’re talking upwards of 800,000 people killed a year and this is a SUCCESS?), abortion laws get tightened up. And for what purpose?
What’s going to happen here is what’s going to happen before Roe v. Wade passed: A population that wants access to abortion because the alternative is considered untenable. You are not promoting the notion that abortion should be abolished as anti-human, you are inadvertently giving credence to the notion that abortion should be “Safe, Legal and Rare.” You are scaring people who aren’t emotionally attached to abortion but see the argument that it is at times necessary into supporting abortion laws just to preserve that option. You are repeating history. So what if you get a top-down abortion ban? There will just be another Roe v. Wade.
Abortion advocates point out (correctly) that increased access to health clinics lowers pregnancy rates and therefore REDUCES abortions. Your policies would close these clinics down and scatter their would-be users to the four winds, which does nothing to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies and would lead to an explosion in abortions if and when those restrictions would be eased (as they did when Roe v. Wade was enacted). You are not winning anything. You are clamping a vicegrip on a segment of the American population through hook and crook of the law, not enacting meaningful changes of minds.
Your argument is so weak that you actually count people who think abortion should be legal under certain circumstances as on your side. That’s absurd. You’re claiming that because Americans are not necessarily enthralled with abortion that they’re down with closing down health clinics en masse. That’s absurd. This is not a piece written by a person who has to deal with actual people on a regular basis. This is written by a crazy person who took an insult from a mealy-mouthed bureaucrat a little too personally and went off on a rant. This rant culminates with assuring us that victory over abortion is near though ~800,000 casualties still mount every passing year.
P.S. Speaking of (actual, real censorship):
“This is no surprise. Those perpetrating great evils always need to justify themselves by silencing those who speak the truth. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln delivered his Cooper Union Speech in New York City concerning the desperate claims of the proponents of the great dehumanizing moral evil of his day:”
Uhhh, is this the same Lincoln who suspended habeas corpus on a few occassions and let the military handle anti-war people in the Union? The same guy who oversaw people being tossed into jail for simply speaking out against the war? This is something that I heard from a gym teacher in junior history class. So what’s your excuse for not knowing that?
Getting back to the real world:
Many today are actually much more stupid than folks who lived 2,000 years ago and even a million or so years ago ….
Back then, if you were pregnant, you knew that you might have a new baby.
Today, many of us can’t or won’t even recognize that.
Now, just how “Progressive” is that attitude?
Fact is that 41 years after Roe, about 55 Million women have had a totally invasive procedure that caused not only some to die but the deaths of 55 Million babies.
Funny thing about having babies is that they generate a lot of economic prosperity.
Parents have to buy all kinds of things for growing babies and children. Folks get hired because of the great need to provide.
Those that “have” many of them are economically bigoted…they have while millions of us do not…
And Abortion caused some of that decline!:(