Archive for abortion
Empathy for “Entities”?
The controversy continues, as it must. I recently explored the issue of late-term abortions through a sort of thought experiment, asking whether anencephalics were “human” in any meaningful sense. A couple of posts later, and after a discussion about the point here at home and an internet-mediated exchange with Andrew Sullivan (see here, here, here, [...]
Anencephalics, Humanity, and Respect
For awhile, I wish I’d never written on anencephaly. My first clue should have been that I didn’t know how to describe these unfortunate children, born without most of their brains. Since one of my points was to raise the issue of what counts as humanity, I didn’t want to answer my own question by [...]
Props
Since I posted yesterday on my puzzlement over Andrew Sullivan’s unwillingness to support late-term abortions despite his obvious and eloquent empathy, he’s continued to post heart-stopping testimonials from readers about their own experiences. Then I was brought up short by his just-issued post:
“A reader writes:
The posts from real women who have had to ponder and [...]
Certainties? If Only
Responding to my first post on the subject of late-term abortions, Andrew Sullivan takes issue with me on anencephalic fetuses (i.e., those whose brains will not develop to enable cognition, and most of whom will die shortly after birth). In the context of questioning his opposition to late-term abortions even in such cases, I had [...]
Beginnings of Life, Impossible Issues
I’ve got two somewhat related topics to discuss today. Let’s start with the unpleasant subject of late-term abortions: On Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” last night,1 Andrew Sullivan said that he was moved by the tragic testimonials of those who’d had such abortions when faced with the prospect of giving birth to seriously disabled children, some of [...]
A Real Vacation (I Think)
I’m to get up in about six hours, shovel whatever still needs to be packed into our trunk, and get out of here: Two weeks up in Cape Cod, and with little or no internet access. (What kind of monsters are these realtors?)
So I won’t be blogging — unless I do. A decision in the [...]
My “Pro-Life” v. Pro-Life Op-Ed
It was published today, a day later than expected. Here’s the link.
His Holiness [sic] and the “Pro-life” Canard
I was Catholic, but only by circumstance, and that was a very long time ago. I didn’t so much leave the Catholic Church as I lost interest in all churches and in organized religion, generally. But it should be said that my experience growing up in the stultifying, boring Church didn’t exactly awaken whatever religious feeling [...]
Public Health Gone Mad! (Manipulations on Abortion and Marriage Equality)
Public health has a lot to answer for. Aside from its many justly celebrated triumphs from the mundane (clean water and improved sanitation) to the dramatic (the polio vaccine, the development of antibiotics), it has also been guilty of using people, especially African Americans, as a means to an end. The best-known example of public [...]
Projecting A Cyber Snowball from my Laptop
Just a few short minutes ago, as the snow began to really pile up and the wind to howl, I hit “send” on the manuscript my seven co-authors and I have been working on for what seems like a decade. (In fact, the project began with a symposium almost two years ago; we signed with [...]