I don’t know.

I don’t know how else to explain this. Can I really formulate an argument that will explain why we shouldn’t murder disabled children? If you don’t immediately recognize the eugenic slaughter of handicapped babies as something severely troubling, I’m not sure that I can offer any insights to help you understand.

You see, this is the problem. This is why we can’t come to any agreements. This is why our arguments are fruitless. They don’t have to be — arguing could be a rather worthwhile activity. But a constructive argument, or debate, or dialogue, or whatever you want to call it, requires both parties to have some shared concept of right vs wrong and fact vs fiction. Without that, neither side can appeal to the other, because they both exist in entirely different universes.

So, me personally, I’m livin’ over here in a world where it’s never OK to execute a disabled baby, or any baby, for any reason. In fact, in my universe — a universe we might call “reality” — the murder of children could be, without hyperbole, classified as THE worst thing. It is the worst of all that is bad. It is the lowest of low. It is the ugliest of ugly. It is the Pinnacle of Wrong. If it isn’t wrong to kill children, then it can not be wrong to do anything else.

Let me say that again, because it’s a crucial point:

If it isn’t wrong to kill children, then it can not be wrong to do anything else.

Literally anything else.

Slavery? Genocide? How can they be condemned? Of what sort of moral standard have they fallen short? If the bar has sunken low enough so that infanticide can leap above it, then I doubt that any atrocity could find a way to limbo underneath.

Believe it or not, even politically incorrect comments about homosexuality have to be excused if we are to believe that baby killing is a moral act.

I’m often told that I need to be more understanding on this topic, but this is an unfair request. There are people — millions of them, in fact — who think it should be legal to murder babies, but then illegal to, say, pay a fast food worker less than minimum wage, or refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. How could I possibly understand this mentality? How could I wrap my head around the thought process that leads one to conclude that the latter cases are so atrocious — so dehumanizing — that they ought to be outlawed, but the former case is so acceptable that it ought to be vigorously defended, and even funded, by the federal government?

Understanding? No. I do not understand. I do not. And I hope that I never do. CS Lewis wrote about the Abolition of Man, and reading his book is the closest I can come to understanding a society that has devolved into this kind of murderous insanity. He wrote:

“The Tao, which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgments. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained. The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value in its place is self-contradictory. There has never been, and never will be, a radically new judgment of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems or ideologies all consist of fragments from the Tao itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao and to it alone such validity as they posses.”

We have arbitrarily wrenched certain values from the One Source of all values, and they have now swollen to madness in their isolation.

I say all of this because my initial intention was to sit down and write about the couple in Washington who just won a 50 million dollar “wrongful birth” settlement. Brock and Rhea Wuth sued a hospital because their son was born severely disabled. No, they were not alleging that the hospital caused the disability; they alleged that the hospital (and a lab testing facility) did not run the correct tests that would have detected the genetic defects while the child was still in the womb. Had they been given the correct tests, they would have known that the baby was “defective,” and then killed it. Tragically, they were robbed of the opportunity to abort their son, so the hospital must pay for the son’s care — for the rest of his life.

Oh, but don’t judge them: they still “love” their child. They wish he was dead, they wish they had killed him, but they still “love” him. Make no judgments. Offer no stern words. They sued a hospital for not giving them the chance to kill their child, but do not think yourself qualified to condemn such a thing.

Or that’s what I’ve been told, anyway.

So I sat down and intended to write about this case. I was going to explore all of the angles. I was going to point out, as a secondary issue, how these “wrongful birth lawsuits” (this one is hardly the first) will serve to make it even more expensive to have a baby at a hospital. Think of the liability issues involved if medical establishments can now be sued for not killing your baby. I was going to explain how this story is an inevitable side effect of the death cult philosophy which tells us that human life is worthless, and a parent’s right to convenience and comfort can trump a child’s right to the life God gave it. I was going to point out how the Nazis also murdered the disabled for the same reason we do: to rid society of those who might be considered a “burden.”

Here’s an excerpt from Hitler’s Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring:

Since the National Revolution public opinion has become increasingly preoccupied with questions of demographic policy and the continuing decline in the birthrate. However, it is not only the decline in population which is a cause for serious concern but equally the increasingly evident genetic composition of our people. Whereas the hereditarily healthy families have for the most part adopted a policy of having only one or two children, countless numbers of inferiors and those suffering from hereditary conditions are reproducing unrestrainedly while their sick and asocial offspring burden the community.

I was going to say that abortion apologists have, in more than one way, aligned themselves with one of the most wicked political regimes in the history of mankind.

I was going to explain why this is not a good thing.

I was going to explain why disabled children shouldn’t be murdered.

I was going to explain why all children, disabled or not, should be protected.

I was going to, but I can’t. These facts are self evident, and I can’t explain a self evident fact. I’m not that good.

If you don’t understand, I can’t make you. All I can do is pray for your soul.

And I will. I promise.

Eloquent.

jamesk1973 wrote:

Eloquent.

Second problem I see, going back to the above, is that he's equating abortion to baby-killing, I think its well established at this point that there are a lot of people out there (myself included) who don't consider a first or second trimester fetus to be a human/child.

PhantomViper wrote:


No, it really isn't, simply because a foetus isn't a baby and someone that says otherwise is either ignorant (when it is based in personal opinion rather than scientific evidence), or malicious (when they try to use that argument to control what a women should or shouldn't do with their own body).

jamesk1973 wrote:

Second problem I see, going back to the above, is that he's equating abortion to baby-killing, I think its well established at this point that there are a lot of people out there (myself included) who don't consider a first or second trimester fetus to be a human/child.

You are welcome to your opinion.

It is always easier to destroy something you have dehumanized or " do not consider a human".




Automatically Appended Next Post:

PhantomViper wrote:


No, it really isn't, simply because a foetus isn't a baby and someone that says otherwise is either ignorant (when it is based in personal opinion rather than scientific evidence), or malicious (when they try to use that argument to control what a women should or shouldn't do with their own body).

A fetus is not a baby.

 Mr. Burning wrote:


So it isn't baby killing.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Fetus - an unborn or unhatched offspring of a mammal, in particular, an unborn human more than eight weeks after conception.

So before 8 weeks its fair game then?

jamesk1973 wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:


So it isn't baby killing.

No, I was simply affirming that fetus is not a baby.

Fetus = before birth

Baby = after birth

Of course "baby" is a bad label. Perhaps newborn or infant better describes the immediate label transformation from pre to post birth.

jamesk1973 wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Fetus - an unborn or unhatched offspring of a mammal, in particular, an unborn human more than eight weeks after conception.

So before 8 weeks its fair game then?

The heart starts beating around the sixth week.

At the 8th week I am seeing definite physical traits. So, no maybe you don't want to kill it at this time.

PhantomViper wrote:

jamesk1973 wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Fetus - an unborn or unhatched offspring of a mammal, in particular, an unborn human more than eight weeks after conception.

So before 8 weeks its fair game then?

The heart starts beating around the sixth week.

At the 8th week I am seeing definite physical traits. So, no maybe you don't want to kill it at this time.

Awww... appeal to emotion, how cute of you.

Now do you wan't to try any factual arguments for your position or are you just going to tick all the other crappy debate class techniques that you've learned in high school?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Looks like an alien to me

PhantomViper wrote:

jamesk1973 wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:


So it isn't baby killing.

No, I was simply affirming that fetus is not a baby.

Fetus = before birth

Baby = after birth

Of course "baby" is a bad label. Perhaps newborn or infant better describes the immediate label transformation from pre to post birth.

It was the blog post that you so "aptly" described as "eloquent" that made the connection in the first place, so trying to undermine my post when I just went with the same connection is again either an example of ignorance (through a lack of reading comprehension in this case), or of malice (since you knew full well what I was referring to and choose to try the "Reductio ad absurdum" approach instead).

 TheCustomLime wrote:
So... okay. Well, to address what I think is his overall argument he seems to think that if we are a moral society we'd be hypocrites not to want abortions of genetically defective kids. What he fails to do is explain why it is a moral thing and instead promises he will do so later.

Where to start... well, I don't know the latin term for this, but he is doing that thing where he says "If you want this, then you should want this too!". Humans are diverse in their opinions and they can want different things. Absolute morality is something that really doesn't exist in our society. Just because someone wants minimum wage laws doesn't mean they are hypocritical for not wanting abortions. There are things called "Rights of the unborn" so such a person would be completely justified in not wanting abortions.

A counter argument to his is who is he to judge the value of life? Where is the line between "Good enough to live" or "Needs to die"? Who makes these decisions? Who defines the category?

Or, using his logic, if you support the euthaniziation of genetically defective children then you'd have to support the euthanization of the homeless. These people are not living a proper life. They suffer each and every day from conditions that will never or very rarely improve. Imagine all the costs to society that will be saved if we just killed all the homeless.

jamesk1973 wrote:


It's interesting that you brought that up.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/12/17/euthanasia-in-belgium-for-terminally-ill-kids-culture-death-continues-its-grim/

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

jamesk1973 wrote:


It's interesting that you brought that up.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/12/17/euthanasia-in-belgium-for-terminally-ill-kids-culture-death-continues-its-grim/

So its far better to make an incurably ill child live out their final days in pain rather than choosing how they die meaning less pain and their family being able to prepare themselves as there will be a definitive time

jamesk1973 wrote:
I think he was using a deliberately ridiculous premise to point out how terrible abortion is.

It is terrible for the mother and fatal for the blastula/embryo/fetus.

When I say terrible for the mother I mean the physical, mental, and spiritual trauma that goes hand-in-hand with an abortion.

The guilt has got to be crushing.

 curran12 wrote:

jamesk1973 wrote:
I think he was using a deliberately ridiculous premise to point out how terrible abortion is.

It is terrible for the mother and fatal for the blastula/embryo/fetus.

When I say terrible for the mother I mean the physical, mental, and spiritual trauma that goes hand-in-hand with an abortion.

The guilt has got to be crushing.

As opposed to the pain and trauma associated with knowing that giving birth to a child who will die painfully over a longer period of time?