Statistics For The Common Sense Truth

Stephen Levitt, one of the worlds most respected economists, wrote this in his bestselling book Freakonomics.

Studies in other parts of Eastern Europe and in Scandinavia from the 1930s through the 1960s reveal a similar trend. In most of these cases, abortion was not forbidden outright, but a woman had to receive permission from a judge in order to obtain one. Researchers found that in the instances where the woman was denied an abortion, she often resented her baby and failed to provide it with a good home. Even when controlling for the income, age, education, and health of the mother, the researchers found that these children too were more likely to become criminals.

Perhaps the most dramatic effect of legalized abortion, however, and one that
would take years to reveal itself, was its impact on crime. In the early 1990s, just
as the first cohort of children born after Roev. Wade was hitting its late teen
years—the years during which young men enter their criminal prime—the rate
of crime began to fall. What this cohort was missing, of course, were the children
who stood the greatest chance of becoming criminals. And the crime rate
continued to fall as an entire generation came of age minus the children whose
mothers had not wanted to bring a child into the world. Legalized abortion led to
less unwantedness; unwantedness leads to high crime; legalized abortion,
therefore, led to less crime.

I highly recommend that anyone read this book which has been written by one of the worlds most analytical minds.

Why Abortion is Moral

Check out this page for a good pro-choice prespective.

Going In Circles

Todd VE said...

Your article before was a refutation of the anti-abortionist's argument that "its against societies morals" and the statement I was making was that in no way makes it right (as you imply in the rest of the post). In your reply to my post you concluded with "Just because you might think that abortion is wrong, doesn't give you the right to control what others do with their bodies", which is a whole other issue entirely. You have to place constraints on what people can do with their bodies... If I swing my fist toward your head that is technically freedom of my body; you must add the caveat that people are free to do what they want with their bodies as long as they don't hurt anyone else. That said, the case has never been made that a fetus is not a person, or where life begins. You can claim that it's after the first or second trimester, but then what is it a day before that?

You make a strange and hostile statement "If I swing my fist toward your head that is technically freedom of my body". No, that would be harming another individual, which a fetus is not until birth. I also don't remember saying anything about trimesters.

You also say that "the case has never been made that a fetus is not a person, or where life begins". Well then let me say it now : the fetus is not a person. And let the case for it be presented on this site.

Refuting Another Argument

My previous post had this reply,

Todd VE said...

"The actions of individuals are the most important indicators of their beliefs."
While I agree that actions can be important, to draw the paralel that this makes it "perfectly normal and morally accepted" to have an abortion is one of the most reduculus argument that I've heard. Its like when you were a child and your mother says no to having a toy and you say "but everyone else has one!"
Hitler was elected leader by an overwhelming majority twice, while most knew of his plans for war and his thoughts on Jews, gays, gypsies etc were well known. (Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and talks about his need for "livingspace".) By your logic this makes it "perfectally normal and morally accepted," a wholly falicious argument.
There are valid reasons on both sides of the abortion argument, but this is not one of them.

I agree that just because most people do something doesn't make it acceptable, the point of this blog is to provide people with the words to combat common illogical arguments against abortion. The post Todd VE was refering to was titled "It Is Against Societies Morals", that is not the sort of logic that I agree with but it is often used by anti-abortionists. Using the logic of the anti-abortionist puts their own fallacies on display. Todd VE then says "But I think the argument was stating that its high frequency had some sort of moral implications, which is what I was invalidating." No, that was not what it was stating, just because most people believe something doesn't make it true, that was my point. Just because you might think that abortion is wrong, doesn't give you the right to control what others do with their bodies.

It Is Against Societies Morals

"It is estimated that 43 percent of women in the U.S. will have an abortion by age 45 and that more than 30 million have had an abortion since the procedure was legalized in 1973 (based on 1992 rates.)" (Fact Sheet: Abortion in the U.S., October 2002)

That's an estimate that 43% of American women will have an abortion by age 45. What does that tell you? Against what you see on TV or from politicians, abortion is a perfectly normal and morally accepted medical procedure. The actions of individuals are the most important indicators of their beliefs.

Its A Potential Human Being

"Responsible parenthood involves decades devoted to the child's proper nurture. To sentence a woman to bear a child against her will is an unspeakable violation of her rights: her right to liberty (to the functions of her body), her right to the pursuit of happiness, and, sometimes, her right to life itself, even as a serf. Such a sentence represents the sacrifice of the actual to the potential, of a real human being to a piece of protoplasm, which has no life in the human sense of the term. It is sheer perversion of language for people who demand this sacrifice to call themselves 'right-to-lifers.' "

— Leonard Peikoff (Objectivism, in the Chapter on Government)

Learn To Read

In a previous post I quoted an excellent abortion argument -

I cannot project the degree of hatred required to make those women run around in crusades against abortion. Hatred is what they certainly project, not love for the embryos, which is a piece of nonsense no one could experience, but hatred, a virulent hatred for an unnamed object...Their hatred is directed against human beings as such, against the mind, against reason, against ambition, against success, against love, against any value that brings happiness to human life. In compliance with the dishonesty that dominates today's intellectual field, they call themselves 'pro-life.' —Ayn Rand

Heres a reply to that quote by someone who lacks the ability to read.

GrannyGrump said...

Rand displays such a thoroughgoing cluelessness that the mind boggles. This is one quote that makes me wonder if her followers all wear tinfoil hats. Hey, Ayn! Some people actually like babies! Some people actually think that it's in the nature of things for mothers to love their own babies! What part of your befuddled brain can't grasp this?

I've added this screed to my blog roundup.

Good for you granny, try re-reading the quote, what Ayn Rand talks about is non-living embryos - not babies.

It Is Against The Bible

Have you actually read the bible? If the bible wasn't a work of fiction the the number of atrocities by God or by those in the favor of God would be bigger the any dictator in the earths history. It also contains a fair amount of pornography that the anti-abortionists should try quoting.

The Prophet Elisha, who was bald, was taunted by a group of young boys - He decided to kill them.

"...as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, 'Go up, you baldhead; go up you baldhead!' When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number."

2 Kings 2:22-24

Oh, and for all the Christians who are against pornography -

"How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince's daughter! The curves of your hips are like jewels, the work of the hands of an artist. Your navel is like a round goblet which never lacks for mixed wine; your belly is like a heap of wheat fenced about with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle."

"Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I said 'I will climb the palm tree, I will take hold of its fruit stalks.' Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the fragrance of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine."

Song of Solomon 7:1-3,7-9

Here is a small list of of murders created by or for God from the bible.

NU 16:35 A fire from the Lord consumes 250 men.

NU 16:49 A plague from the Lord kills 14,700 people.

NU 21:3 The Israelites utterly destroy the Canaanites.

NU 21:6 Fiery serpents, sent by the Lord, kill many Israelites.

NU 21:35 With the Lord's approval, the Israelites slay Og "... and his sons and all his people, until there was not one survivor left ...."

NU 25:4 (KJV) "And the Lord said unto Moses, take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun ...."

NU 25:8 "He went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly."

NU 25:9 24,000 people die in a plague from the Lord.

NU 31:9 The Israelites capture Midianite women and children.

NU 31:17-18 Moses, following the Lord's command, orders the Israelites to kill all the Midianite male children and "... every woman who has known man ...." (Note: How would it be determined which women had known men? One can only speculate.)

NU 31:31-40 32,000 virgins are taken by the Israelites as booty. Thirty-two are set aside (to be sacrificed?) as a tribute for the Lord.

DT 2:33-34 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Sihon.

DT 3:6 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Og.

DT 7:2 The Lord commands the Israelites to "utterly destroy" and shown "no mercy" to those whom he gives them for defeat.

DT 20:13-14 "When the Lord delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the males .... As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves."

DT 20:16 "In the cities of the nations the Lord is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes."

DT 21:10-13 With the Lord's approval, the Israelites are allowed to take "beautiful women" from the enemy camp to be their captive wives. If, after sexual relations, the husband has "no delight" in his wife, he can simply let her go.

DT 28:53 "You will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you."

JS 1:1-9, 18 Joshua receives the Lord's blessing for all the bloody endeavors to follow.

JS 6:21-27 With the Lord's approval, Joshua destroys the city of Jericho men, women, and children with the edge of the sword.

JS 7:19-26 Achan, his children and his cattle are stoned to death because Achan had taken a taboo thing.

JS 8:22-25 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly smites the people of Ai, killing 12,000 men and women, so that there were none who escaped.

JS 10:10-27 With the help of the Lord, Joshua utterly destroys the Gibeonites.

JS 10:28 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the people of Makkedah.

JS 10:30 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Libnahites.

JS 10:32-33 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the people of Lachish.

JS 10:34-35 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Eglonites.

JS 10:36-37 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Hebronites.

JS 10:38-39 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Debirites.

JS 10:40 (A summary statement.) "So Joshua defeated the whole land ...; he left none remaining, but destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded."

JS 11:6 The Lord orders horses to be hamstrung. (Exceedingly cruel.)

JS 11:8-15 "And the lord gave them into the hand of Israel, ...utterly destroying them; there was none left that breathed ...."

JS 11:20 "For it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be utterly destroyed, and should receive no mercy but be exterminated, as the Lord commanded Moses."

JS 11:21-23 Joshua utterly destroys the Anakim.

JG 1:4 With the Lord's support, Judah defeats 10,000 Canaanites at Bezek.

JG 1:6 With the Lord's approval, Judah pursues Adoni-bezek, catches him, and cuts off his thumbs and big toes.

JG 1:8 With the Lord's approval, Judah smites Jerusalem.

JG 1:17 With the Lord's approval, Judah and Simeon utterly destroy the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath.

JG 3:29 The Israelites kill about 10,000 Moabites.

JG 3:31 (A restatement.) Shamgar killed 600 Philistines with an oxgoad.

JG 4:21 Jael takes a tent stake and hammers it through the head of Sisera, fastening it to the ground.

JG 7:19-25 The Gideons defeat the Midianites, slay their princes, cut off their heads, and bring the heads back to Gideon.

JG 8:15-21 The Gideons slaughter the men of Penuel.

JG 9:5 Abimalech murders his brothers.

JG 9:45 Abimalech and his men kill all the people in the city.

JG 9:53-54 "A woman dropped a stone on his head and cracked his skull. Hurriedly he called to his armor-bearer, 'Draw your sword and kill me, so that they can't say a woman killed me.' So his servant ran him through, and he died."

JG 11:29-39 Jepthah sacrifices his beloved daughter, his only child, according to a vow he has made with the Lord.

JG 14:19 The Spirit of the Lord comes upon a man and causes him to slay thirty men.

JG 15:15 Samson slays 1000 men with the jawbone of an ass.

JG 16:21 The Philistines gouge out Samson's eyes.

JG 16:27-30 Samson, with the help of the Lord, pulls down the pillars of the Philistine house and causes his own death and that of 3000 other men and women.

JG 18:27 The Danites slay the quiet and unsuspecting people of Laish.

JG 19:22-29 A group of sexual depraved men beat on the door of an old man's house demanding that he turn over to them a male house guest. Instead, the old man offers his virgin daughter and his guest's concubine (or wife): "Behold, here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do with them what seems good to you; but against this man do not do so vile a thing." The man's concubine is ravished and dies. The man then cuts her body into twelve pieces and sends one piece to each of the twelve tribes of Israel.

JG 20:43-48 The Israelites smite 25,000+ "men of valor" from amongst the Benjamites, "men and beasts and all that they found," and set their towns on fire.

JG 21:10-12 "... Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword and; also the women and little ones.... every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall utterly destroy." They do so and find four hundred young virgins whom they bring back for their own use.

1SA 4:10 The Philistines slay 30,000 Israelite foot soldiers.

1SA 5:6-9 The Lord afflicts the Philistines with tumors in their "secret parts," presumably for having stolen the Ark.

1SA 6:19 God kills seventy men (or so) for looking into the Ark (at him?). (Note: The early Israelites apparently thought the Ark to be God's abode.)

1SA 7:7-11 Samuel and his men smite the Philistines.

1SA 11:11 With the Lord's blessing, Saul and his men cut down the Ammonites.

1SA 14:31 Jonathan and his men strike down the Philistines.

1SA 14:48 Saul smites the Amalekites.

1SA 15:3, 7-8 "This is what the Lord says: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass ....' And Saul ... utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword."

1SA 15:33 "Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord ...."

1SA 18:7 The women sing as they make merry: "Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands."

1SA 18:27 David murders 200 Philistines, then cuts off their foreskins.

1SA 30:17 David smites the Amalekites.

2SA 2:23 Abner kills Asahel.

2SA 3:30 Joab and Abishai kill Abner.

2SA 4:7-8 Rechan and Baanah kill Ish-bosheth, behead him, and take his head to David.

2SA 4:12 David has Rechan and Baanah killed, their hands and feet cut off, and their bodies hanged by the pool at Hebron.

2SA 5:25 "And David did as the Lord commanded him, and smote the Philistines ...."

2SA 6:2-23 Because she rebuked him for having exposed himself, Michal (David's wife) was barren throughout her life.

2SA 8:1-18 (A listing of some of David's murderous conquests.)

2SA 8:4 David hamstrung all but a few of the horses.

2SA 8:5 David slew 22,000 Syrians.

2SA 8:6, 14 "The Lord gave victory to David wherever he went."

2SA 8:13 David slew 18,000 Edomites in the valley of salt and made the rest slaves.

2SA 10:18 David slew 47,000+ Syrians.

2SA 11:14-27 David has Uriah killed so that he can marry Uriah's wife, Bathsheba.

2SA 12:1, 19 The Lord strikes David's child dead for the sin that David has committed.

2SA 13:1-15 Amnon loves his sister Tamar, rapes her, then hates her.

2SA 13:28-29 Absalom has Amnon murdered.

2SA 18:6 -7 20,000 men are slaughtered at the battle in the forest of Ephraim.

2SA 18:15 Joab's men murder Absalom.

2SA 20:10-12 Joab's men murder Amasa and leave him "... wallowing in his own blood in the highway. And anyone who came by, seeing him, stopped."

2SA 24:15 The Lord sends a pestilence on Israel that kills 70,000 men.

1KI 2:24-25 Solomon has Adonijah murdered.

1KI 2:29-34 Solomon has Joab murdered.

1KI 2:46 Solomon has Shime-i murdered.

1KI 13:15-24 A man is killed by a lion for eating bread and drinking water in a place where the Lord had previously told him not to. This is in spite of the fact that the man had subsequently been lied to by a prophet who told the man that an angel of the Lord said that it would be alright to eat and drink there.

1KI 20:29-30 The Israelites smite 100,000 Syrian soldiers in one day. A wall falls on 27,000 remaining Syrians.

2KI 1:10-12 Fire from heaven comes down and consumes fifty men.

2KI 2:23-24 Forty-two children are mauled and killed, presumably according to the will of God, for having jeered at a man of God.

2KI 5:27 Elisha curses Gehazi and his descendants forever with leprosy.

2KI 6:18-19 The Lord answers Elisha's prayer and strikes the Syrians with blindness. Elisha tricks the blind Syrians and leads them to Samaria.

2KI 6:29 "So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, 'Give up your son so we may eat him,' but she had hidden him."

2KI 9:24 Jehu tricks and murders Joram.

2KI 9:27 Jehu has Ahaziah killed.

2KI 9:30-37 Jehu has Jezebel killed. Her body is trampled by horses. Dogs eat her flesh so that only her skull, feet, and the palms of her hands remain.

2KI 10:7 Jehu has Ahab's seventy sons beheaded, then sends the heads to their father.

2KI 10:14 Jehu has forty-two of Ahab's kin killed.

2KI 10:17 "And when he came to Samaria, he slew all that remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had wiped them out, according to the word of the Lord ...."

2KI 10:19-27 Jehu uses trickery to massacre the Baal worshippers.

2KI 11:1 Athaliah destroys all the royal family.

2KI 14:5, 7 Amaziah kills his servants and then 10,000 Edomites.

2KI 15:3-5 Even though he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, the Lord smites Azariah with leprosy for not having removed the "high places."

2KI 15:16 Menahem ripped open all the women who were pregnant.

2KI 19:35 An angel of the Lord kills 185,000 men.

1CH 20:3 (KJV) "And he brought out the people that were in it, and cut them with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes."

2CH 13:17 500,000 Israelites are slaughtered.

2CH 21:4 Jehoram slays all his brothers.

PS 137:9 Happy will be the man who dashes your little ones against the stones.

PS 144:1 God is praised as the one who trains hands for war and fingers for battle.

IS 13:15 "Everyone who is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their ... wives will be ravished."

IS 13:18 "Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children."

IS 14:21-22 "Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers."

IS 49:26 The Lord will cause the oppressors of the Israelite's to eat their own flesh and to become drunk on their own blood as with wine.

JE 16:4 "They shall die grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth."

LA 4:9-10 "Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of famine; racked with hunger, they waste away for lack of food. ... pitiful women have cooked their own children, who became their food ..."

EZ 6:12-13 The Lord says: "... they will fall by the sword, famine and plague. He that is far away will die of the plague, and he that is near will fall by the sword, and he that survives and is spared will die of famine. So will I spend my wrath upon them. And they will know I am the Lord, when the people lie slain among their idols around their altars, on every high hill and on all the mountaintops, under every spreading tree and every leafy oak ...."

EZ 9:4-6 The Lord commands: "... slay old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women ...."

EZ 20:26 In order that he might horrify them, the Lord allowed the Israelites to defile themselves through, amongst other things, the sacrifice of their first-born children.

EZ 21:3-4 The Lord says that he will cut off both the righteous and the wicked that his sword shall go against all flesh.

EZ 23:25, 47 God is going to slay the sons and daughters of those who were whores.

EZ 23:34 "You shall ... pluck out your hair, and tear your breasts."

HO 13:16 "They shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up."

MI 3:2-3 "... who pluck off their skin ..., and their flesh from off their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron."

MT 3:12, 8:12, 10:21, 13:30, 42, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30, LK 13:28, JN 5:24 Some will spend eternity burning in Hell. There will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

MT 10:21 "... the brother shall deliver up his brother to death, and the father his child, ... children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death."

MT 10:35-36 "For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law a man's enemies will be the members of his own family."

MT 11:21-24 Jesus curses [the inhabitants of] three cities who were not sufficiently impressed with his great works.

AC 13:11 Paul purposefully blinds a man (though not permanently).

Of course this is only a few of the hundreds of examples that can be easily found that go against the anti-abortionist viewpoint.

Don't You Care About Life?

I cannot project the degree of hatred required to make those women run around in crusades against abortion. Hatred is what they certainly project, not love for the embryos, which is a piece of nonsense no one could experience, but hatred, a virulent hatred for an unnamed object...Their hatred is directed against human beings as such, against the mind, against reason, against ambition, against success, against love, against any value that brings happiness to human life. In compliance with the dishonesty that dominates today's intellectual field, they call themselves 'pro-life.' —Ayn Rand

Beat Every Anti-Abortion Argument

This site provides the most well articulated arguments for the use of abortion. If you have any ideas for this site then please send your comments.