Comments on: Let’s Actually Get Real About Abortion

By: mcn

mcn — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 21:43:51 +0000

Everything I’ve read about ‘low abortion rates’ has included a significant statistical sleight-of-hand: they determine abortion rates per capita without weighting them against birth rate. For example, they brag that Netherlands abortion rate is low (per 1000 women of child-bearing ages), but they conveniently ignore the fact that the Netherlands have a ridiculously low birth rate. Of course their abortion rate is low…no one is getting pregnant at all!

By: Leticia Velasquez

Leticia Velasquez — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:39:51 +0000

The idea that all abortions are a result of economic hardship is held by many liberals including Professor Stephen Schneck at Catholic University who used it as an excuse to support Obama’s re-election in an interview on “The World Over” on EWTN. Ray Arroyo tried valiantly to make him see how Obama had increased abortions via subsidizing Planned Parenthood, ditching the Mexico City Policy and Obamacare, but he still insisted that Romneycare had reduced abortions by offering free care to pregnant women and that Obamacare would as well. Its a convenient facade to hide behind, but the professor had no hard facts to back it up and a poor knowledge of women’s motivations for abortion. He certainly hadn’t read this article.

By: Templar

Templar — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 02:02:29 +0000

Are you sure you want to get real about abortion? Okay, in 1968 Joseph Ratzinger wrote the following, “Regarding the future, it seems likely that, in global terms, the influence of the Church over the world will constantly diminish. The numeric triumph of Catholicism over other religions, which today can still be admitted, probably will not continue. ….

In this state of things, one should no longer be concerned with the salvation of ‘the others,’ who for some time now have become ‘our brothers.’ Above all, the central question is to have an intuition of the Church’s position and mission in History under a positive new point-of-view. This new point-of-view should allow one to believe in the universal offer of the grace of salvation as well as the essential part that the Church plays in this. Therefore, in this sense the problem changed.

What concerns us is no longer how ‘the others’ will be saved. Certainly we know, by our faith in divine mercy, that they can be saved. How this happens, we leave to God. The point that does concern us is principally this: Why, despite the wider possibility of salvation, is the Church still necessary? Why should faith and life still continue to come through her? In other words, the present day Christians no longer question if their non-believer brothers can reach salvation. Overall, they desire to know what is the meaning of their union with the universal embrace of Christ and their union with the Church.”

(Joseph Ratzinger, “Necessita della missione della Chiesa nel mondo,” in La Fine della Chiesa come Societa Perfetta, Verona: Mondatori, 1968, pp 69-70).

Five years later, abortion was legalized in the US. Why does God permit abortion? If the Church He founded to save souls is no longer interested in salvation, at least aborted souls enter an eternity of natural happiness in Limbo. While abortion remains a despicable crime, it seems that there are far fewer souls in Hell, thanks to abortion. God permits evil so that good may come from it.

By: THURSDAY AFTERNOON EDITION | Big Pulpit

THURSDAY AFTERNOON EDITION | Big Pulpit — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 16:07:36 +0000

[...] Let’s Actually Get Real About Abortion – Michael New, First Thoughts [...]

By: Pro-life blog buzz 11-6-12

Pro-life blog buzz 11-6-12 — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 20:37:22 +0000

[...] Michael New writes that despite the insistence of some, there is no evidence that offering welfare benefits to women decreases abortion rates. At National Review, New also has information on three ballot initiatives in Montana, Florida, and Massachusetts, which may be of interest to pro-life voters. [...]

By: Charles

Charles — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:27:43 +0000

Also I doubt Germany allows nurse practitioners or others to perform abortion as is done in some U.S. states.
Also, I doubt Germany skips performing basic health inspections and enforcing regulatory compliance of abortion facilities for 1 month or 1 year or 20 years as was done in Philadelphia and Maryland.
Nor are they likely to subsidize German abortionists for distributing birth control at 4X the cost or providing a mammogram referral (which any health facility can do) for the rare 30-40yo woman to visit them.

If you think U.S.’ present system is neutral on abortion, it isn’t. American conservatives and libertarians should be acting together to roll back the corrupt gains in public privileges granted to abortionists.

By: Charles

Charles — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:18:07 +0000

Germany, as well as much of the rest of Europe, has more restrictive abortion laws than the U.S.A. No late-term abortions except when the mother’s health is in danger. Only first trimester abortions allowed, and then with pro-life/adoption counseling and mandatory waiting periods. Also, abortion is not covered by state medical programs except for those of lower incomes. These are all restrictions that U.S. abortionists give their blood money to Democrats to prevent from being made law in U.S. states.

By: Todd Vickers

Todd Vickers — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 17:43:53 +0000

The World Health Organization calls unsafe abortion “The Silent Pandemic.” Before abortions were legal in the USA, the difference in the estimates of illegal abortions can be explained by the lack of documentation that accompanies illegal actions. The statement “because the legalization of abortion changed sexual mores” is unfounded inference that can be otherwise explained.
“Estimates of the number of illegal abortions [in the USA] in the 1950s and 1960s ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year.”
Mr. New points to the tracking of legal abortion in 70s which starts at zero so obviously there would be a growth in numbers after it was legalized.

Without peer review we can still try to account for why Europe has a lower abortion rate and Frum’s “thesis” is NOT irrational.

Mr. New has not refuted anything. We should favor REALISTIC SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS, not wishful thinking that pretends they will go away by passing a law.
“After a decade of largely unrestricted access to abortion, the rate in Switzerland remains stable and is among the lowest in the world.”
As Qtd in: http://www.water-scribe.com/conservatives-and-black-market-abortion

By: Chuck Donovan

Chuck Donovan — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 17:29:05 +0000

In my long experience, those who earnestly seek changes in the law of abortion are hard to match in their prayer life and in the efforts they expend to supply alternatives. All this slicing and dicing of what is better to do strikes me as needlessly discordant. Seek life in prayer, work, politics and policy, do these things in parallel and without rancor, and support those who make the effort rather than subject them to critiques that too often justify passivity in one or more spheres. Europe is averting more life altogether than we in the United States. It is no model for a Christian future. That said, we are a faith that may sleep in the Garden but still repair to the Cross at the last hour. Ours is a time to hold fast, without fear of the Centurion’s sword or, far more terrible, the pundit’s disapproval.

By: gaius marius

gaius marius — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:25:04 +0000

to further Michael PS’s comment — we have to realize as the Church that our finest hours have always come through proselytizing and persuading, not through the sword. change minds by deed and word, expressing the love of Christ, and the laws will follow.

i cannot help but think that the impatience that many of us feel with our fellow man is always and everywhere a submission to temptation — and the attempt to bend the laws of mundane sovereigns against the obvious sentiment of the vast majority of people so ruled on earth is but a form of that impatience. it will not serve God or his Church to persist.

to the extent that Frum is calling for a return to patience and persuasion in word and deed over forcing our fellow man against their will, i agree with him. have faith that life can and will win the argument.