Since You Asked: A Note for Messrs. Peters, Shea and Bowman
Thomas Peters and company seem to have gotten under our skin a bit lately. By including us in the ranks of the major progressive Catholic voices on the internet who ignored the latest LiveAction subterfuge success, they have already got 3 responses (M.Z., Morning’s Minion, and Nate Wildermuth) from us. Make it 4.
I can’t speak for why the others felt the need to respond to a rather weak argument from absence (in Bowman’s case compounded by the inexplicable suggestion that our perceived lack of interest in the latest LiveAction bust stems from our dissidence on Humanae Vitae, a dissidence of which I have not seen any evidence – ever). What I can say is that my reason for responding is because I genuinely care about ending abortion. And I care about dishonesty in the blogosphere.
My initial reasons for not writing on this issue were two-fold. First, I was staying with my ailing brother and had little internet access and second, I wasn’t sure I had much new to say that hadn’t already been said. I try to say something original in my posts, including my posts about abortion (that comparatively few people read, by the way), rather than parroting the things everyone else is already saying. I was happy enough with what I read over at Fallible Blogma, for instance, that I didn’t see much need to repeat it here at VN. That has since changed. The flurry of accusations, defenses, and counter-accusations has conspired to give me some (I hope) more original thoughts on the issue.
First off, when I watched the video, what impressed itself upon me right from the start, when I saw the two actors walking towards the clinic, was the guts such an undertaking requires. I would be scared stiff of blowing my assigned role. The total nonchalance of the PP employee when confronted with a pimp involved in not just prostitution, but human trafficking and child abuse, is not something I would be confident assuming. (As the employee herself suggests, others in her office would not be nearly so accommodating.)
I would be entirely terrified that the jig could be up at any second. And that got me thinking at least two more things. First, what is LiveAction’s plan when things do go wrong? I mean, really, things can’t go this good all the time. Do they ever get called out for this? What do they do then?
And this led to my second thought: How many attempted videos are there for every big bust? Does PP usually pass with flying colors, while incidences like this are the exception, or do most PP clinics and employees operate with little regard for the law? I honestly don’t know. Has LiveAction ever commented on this aspect of their work? I’d love it if someone would post a link to such information.
The other thing that got me thinking were the claims of Matt Warner (whom I quite like) and Thomas Peters that this could be the final straw in getting PP defunded. I wasn’t sure exactly what that would look like legally, so I asked Matt. He explained that his view was mostly that such a video could galvanize the electorate in an anti-abortion direction prior to some important elections in 2012. I wasn’t sure if there was any way that evidence of illegality could directly compromise PP’s funding (you break the law, you lose money!), or if such evidence would just be useful in getting pro-life politicians elected. Matt emphasized the latter. Is there anything I should know about the former?
And that also got me thinking, how useful are such videos in galvanizing the electorate? Very, I would hope. Complicity in human trafficking and child abuse is a pretty big deal. On the other hand, I suspect we would need a veritable flood of such videos in order to avoid being brushed off with a simple, “In such a huge organization there are bound to be a few bad apples.” I’m not sure one video, however damning, is gonna do it.
But this brings up another problem. Does every successful video make PP more and more cautious? Does our success in this video make future videos of the same ilk more difficult to make? Is it possible to get a veritable flood of damning videos before PP gets wise to it all? We have a bit of a catch-22. What we need is notoriety, but notoriety makes our job tougher and tougher.
I, for one, celebrate videos like the latest LiveAction bust. They make it more and more clear what an evil organization Planned Parenthood is. But I am less optimistic than some of my fellow pro-lifers about their potential impact. It seems to me that there are a variety of complicating factors. I hope that I am wrong, and would be happy to have my reservations debunked in the comboxes below. I make them with sorrow, not glee.
In other news, and despite Bowman’s caricature of VN, I think our best bet, long-term, is to maintain the connection between sex and babies by the use and promotion of NFP, to have relatively large families, and to raise our children in a counter-cultural way. I also think that part of such a counter-cultural witness must include the rejection of violence to solve problems in other spheres and the rejection of the consumerism that destroys our self-control, limits our capacity for delayed gratification, and reinforces a Satanic individualism that makes us incapable of identifying with the poor and vulnerable, born and unborn. It’s not nearly so sensational as a LiveAction video, with which it can certainly co-exist, but I think has better prospects for ending abortion.
Brett Salkeld is a doctoral student in theology at Regis College in Toronto. He is a father of two (so far) and husband of one.
Here’s one more reason I’m less than sanguine about the vidoes: what if PP handled the situation as well as possible. That the person at the desk immediately called the authorities, and that, there was no way they could have responded better,
Would that make what they do OK?
I understand that it is worthwile to puncture the myth that PP is a benevolent organization that is mostly concerned with helping women. Nevertheless, the pro-life case does not rest on the depravity of all those involved in abortion. As we are all too well aware, otherwise good people can be tempted by and commit terrible sins.
So, to be short, my well-documented concerns with Vox Nova’s commentary aside, I do not hold it against you that you would let these videos pass without commentary and or amplification.
I am a bit more concerned that the only commentary you can muster about the current effort to make the Hyde Amendment permanent is a single post that it’s not a covert effort to legalize rape.
And so, while I do not find this specific criticism all that compelling, I think it would benefit VN (and members of the “orthodox” side) to reflect on who their audience is, what are they accomplishing with their posts, and whom a unfamiliar reader might conclude are their true friends and enemies based on their current front page of posts.
Indeed. We actually need to convince many pro-lifers (or at least our rhetoricians) that, on the whole, pro-choicers are decent (if gravely mistaken) people. If the only reason to stop PP is because it is staffed entirely by callous and evil persons, our demands can be met far too easily by just letting nice people run the abortion industry.
As to reflecting on our audience, I am a little confused about the total lack of popularity (relative to my other posts) for my previous abortion posts. Anyone got an explanation for that?
To lay my cards on the table, I am more of an occasional visitor here than a regular reader. I did actually come here this week hoping to see some commentary supporting or defending the No Taxpayer Funding of Abortion Act.
I should note that I had not noticed MZ’s post about the Act when summarizing VN’s contributions, but since it was more of a tangential post about a tangential issue (medical professionals in the role of judges) I don’t think it detracts from my point.
I’m not sure how you measure “popularity,” but if you compare your posts about abortion to MM’s posts about, say, Newt Gingrich, you’ll see a marked difference.
MM tends to assume the worst motives of their adversaries. They are lying when they state their true motives (e.g. opposing HCR because of abortion funding). Really, they just want to stick it to poor people and hoard for themselves.
Whereas you seem to be calmly pointing out where you think pro-choice people are wrong in their thinking.
I don’t mean this to be a criticism of your posts — our discourse needs more light and less heat. I’m trying to explain people’s reactions. To an outside observer, particularly one passionate about the abortion issue, it appears that VN is much more passionate about villifying Republicans than in defending the unborn.
Which I suppose is very human. I might have more passion about my wife leaving dirty dishes around the house than that millions are going without healthcare, or that my state is going to execute someone tonight. That is disproportionate. But it’s something to occasionally check ourselves against.
You seem to posit the “orthodox” side, as you call it, as being on the opposite side to VN. I would not be so quick to make such an assumption. On what basis can Shea et al. be called orthodox, and VN not?
I used “orthodox” in scare quotes for how they might refer to themselves. I am personally of the opinion that small-o orthodox should be used to describe beliefs, not people, since none of us has done a perfect job of aligning ourselves with the Church.
For my use, it was more for brevity and simplicity. Similar to how I will refer to “pro-life” and “pro-choice” even though I know both terms probably obscure more than they illuminate.
As to reflecting on our audience, I am a little confused about the total lack of popularity (relative to my other posts) for my previous abortion posts. Anyone got an explanation for that?
Brett, because your posts on abortion aren’t controversial. Among you and your fellow VN bloggers, even though all of you presumably believe abortion is immoral, you all have a wide range of beliefs on the subject of how to address the abortion issue (what laws to implement, what social policies best reduce abortion, the pros and cons of various pro-life strategies, the culpability of people involved in the abortion industry, etc.). Some of the abortion posts are more controversial (like those critical of pro-life strategies). And the posts here on VN which take a more controversial view of the abortion question naturally generate more views.
I generally agree with you, Brett, when you post on the subject of abortion (or any other subject). On the other side of the spectrum, I know that I disagree with M.Z. on the topic of abortion, because he about took my head off when I questioned why he was defending the fired NJ PP worker.
Does every successful video make PP more and more cautious? Does our success in this video make future videos of the same ilk more difficult to make?
I don’t see a problem with PP becoming more “cautious” and more willing to follow the laws on reporting. If PP takes these LiveAction videos seriously and make a true effort to comply with reporting laws, etc., that, in and of itself, is a victory. There is a reason why reporting laws are a good thing: because underage girls who are pregnant due to sex trafficking or even simple statutory rape have a bigger problem than their pregnancy – they are also being taken advantage of and are in a situation in which they need the help of parents, police, the community, etc.
In sum, sure, it would be nice if the videos galvanized the public to be more critical of PP and the abortion industry in general. But if the videos only galvanize PP to better comply with the current abortion regime already in effect, that would be a good thing too.
I would imagine the videos would lead to Planned Parenthood being defunded much in the same way the previous videos led to ACORN being defunded. In fact, this has already happened in New Jersey.
I would posit that the policy which has resulted in 50,000,000 American babies killed in what should be the safest place in the world, their mother’s womb, takes mass murder to a new level. In the USA or anywhere else.
Anything short of outrage, much less any defense of perpetuating it, is moral cowardice.
“the latest LiveAction subterfuge?”
Indeed.
Brett, because your posts on abortion aren’t controversial.
Fair enough, though that also means that people get to ignore the fact that VN is actually pro-life. We actually have a lot of “non-controversial” posts about abortion, but they go unnoticed by our critics.
If PP takes these LiveAction videos seriously and make a true effort to comply with reporting laws, etc., that, in and of itself, is a victory.
Very true.
Fair enough, though that also means that people get to ignore the fact that VN is actually pro-life.
As we know based on the abortion debates that rage here on VN, “pro-life” means different things to different people. I’m willing to say that all VN bloggers think abortion is immoral, and of course, I acknowledge that all VN bloggers call themselves “pro-life” – but some VN bloggers have positions which other “pro-life” people wouldn’t call “pro-life” (just as some VN bloggers think some “pro-life” people have positions which they wouldn’t call “pro-life). The easiest example in the current debate is M.Z.’s position on the LiveAction story.
Maybe VN’s critics are wrong to not notice and give credit to VN’s “non-controversial” abortion posts. But sometimes, VN’s critics are right to call out VN bloggers on “controversial” abortion positions that are misguided or unfair to others who call themselves “pro-life.”
Entrapment is used against the poor in society. Occasionally you’ll see a story of a high scale prostitution sting. Even more rarely will see a story of a drug bust on a powerful person. This is predominantly a tactic used against the poor and vulnerable. If you aren’t one of the poor and vulnerable it is easy to cast aspersions about people getting what they deserve.
Bruce,
I’m not sure I understand your comments. Is it a criticism of something I said?
Is calling a covert operation “subterfuge” tantamount to defending the perpetuation of mass murder? (One online dictionary calls subterfuge a “deceptive stratagem or device.” That seems pretty accurate, no?)
In case you missed it, I approved of such subterfuge, though I had some questions about those who think it will break PP.
Did my post really showcase cowardice? Or am I missing something here?
I think I am misunderstood. I agree with the subterfuge as well. Sorry I’m not clearer in my commboxes.
Brett I think your contributions to VN have been quite positive. I wish they were more representative of VN’s dealing with abortion, both in tone and content. Unfortunately your approach has been drowned out by the rancor of Henry, MM and MZ, and the lack of any pushback on them by those like yourself.
So that’s why my article, which though it didn’t refer to VN in particular referred to the Catholic Left in general which in Thom’s very long list included VN (as a whole) and as one among many, did by that extension refer to VN. But I didn’t say there are no pro-lifers at VN, and my comments here have always acknowledge one or two of you. I even think there is maybe one pro-lifer at Commonweal. But you and he are being utterly drowned out. Only you can do something about that. If posts like this one were as common as the other anti-pro-life yelling that happens here, VN’s image would change.
Matt
You are making these outrageous claims about people not being pro-life, all because they don’t follow your political ways of thinking. Again, the normal thing to do: “they don’t agree with our suggested line of action” means to you “they are not with us, and so not pro-life.” That is absurd. This is exactly the kind of problem with the blogosphere. There is a kind of inquisitional demand to follow prudential decisions, which, truth be told, are questionable. The funny thing, you, and so many others, bring the rancor, and I think you fail to see all the insulting, false reasoning, accusations you bring all the time to the forum. You are not willing to deal with things which challenge your position, to reform it, to make it stronger. That itself is very telling. You ignore most of what is posted on VN, and then act like postings never exist because, well, you ignored it. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
Thanks for the compliment on my contributions Matt. I want to acknowledge that before moving on here.
I wonder, if I am one of them, who are the “one or two” pro-lifers here? I know you discount Henry, MM, and MZ, I think unfairly, but nevertheless. This means that at most one of Sam, Kyle, Pentimento, Nate, Kelly, RCM, David, Tim and Matt meets your standard – and perhaps none of them. This is even more implausible than your accusations against the “big 3.”
Furthermore, you make a big deal out of the fact that we don’t kick back against the imagined pro-abort triumvirate, but find nothing significant in the fact that they never chastise the rest of us for being pro-life. Are arguments from silence legit or not? Maybe they think that we are good examples of being pro-life? Maybe they think that if more pro-lifers used our approach lives would be saved? Maybe the real problem they have is with the Republican party and not with pro-lifers as such? Or would that be giving them too much credit?
Thank you for illustrating my point. And as usual, where MZ claims that any pro-life critic of uncivil assertions is thin-skinned, you and he and MM are glad to dish out accusations of incivility.
“because they don’t follow your political ways of thinking” What does this even mean? What ways of thinking do I believe in, that you don’t adopt, and that I am criticizing here? You don’t say, on purpose. VN defined the position of the USCCB itself and its liberal bishops on Obamacare last year as hack partisanship. That’s what you call mere “political ways of thinking.”
What do I mean when I say comments like yours are not pro-life? It’s really quite empirical, as I said in the other posts: go back through VN posts in the last two years, mark when abortion or pro-lifers have been mentioned, and tally which ones were against abortion and which were against prolifers plus being in defense of pro-abortion politicians doing pro-abortion things. If you want to know who your leaders are who give VN the image of abortion sympathizers, and whether the pro-life minority here ever calls them out on that pattern, just examine the record.
In response to Brett from the other post: I think your contributions are very positive. They are being drowned out, in frequency, in tone, and in enthusiasm for or against. VN has the image it has because postts like this one are not defining the discussion of this issue 80% of the time. I wish they were, for, as I said in the conclusion of my article–and which has fallen by the wayside here–true liberalism is the natural intellectual home for strident advocacy for the preborn. A strident advocate for the preborn VN could be, but is not–and with its virulent attacks on abortion-stopping efforts, it has a lot to do just to break even.
Actually, I disagree with your accounting. I don’t think the vast majority of posts attack pro-lifers rather than attacking abortion. Though it is clear that people read the ones that criticize the pro-life movement and don’t read (or remember) those critiquing abortion.
VN has the image it has because critiquing the pro-life movements is off limits and anyone who dares to do it will cause a huge sensation, not because that’s all we talk about. How many people link to our critiques of pro-lifers and how many link to our critiques of abortion? Do the pro-life movement a favor and start promoting posts on here that do critique abortion. I can tell from the stats in the back that you’d be the first.
Could it be that there are those who don’t want to give the impression that VN is pro-life? Is there any agenda that is served by downplaying the fact that non-Republicans care about the unborn? Hmmm.
Actually, I disagree with your accounting. I don’t think the vast majority of posts attack pro-lifers rather than attacking abortion.
I can’t speak to the ratios for the entire blog, but there are definitely individual contributors for whom that is true. For example, I can’t actually think of any instances in which MM wrote a post chiefly concerned with attacking abortion rather than attacking pro-lifers/conservatives. Maybe there have been one or two that have slipped by me over the years, but if such posts exist they would be a small minority of the total.
BA
And you know the reason. Abortion is wrong is a given. Preaching to the choir is bad, trying to debate them to believe what they already believe is worse. There is no need for people to just constantly echo what is already a given.
This is not about merely having some critiques of the pro-life movement. Mark Shea does that as stridently as some here. But his posts on that are contextualized and overpowered with the other strident defenses of the preborn, so it’s clear to an objective reader where he stands and it’s not in the middle. Look: if you think VN has the image of a group of guys who are advocates for the preborn, you’re welcome to that opinion. All I can say is that you should consider that maybe you might be wrong, and it could be helpful (and couldn’t hurt) for you to act anyway as if you don’t have that image. Otherwise I fear you won’t help improve it because you won’t see the need, and more of the same is likely what everyone will continue to observe.
I have no illusions about VNs image. I know what Republicans are going to think. Now, what someone like WJ thinks (see his comment over in MM’s current post) seems much closer to reality, but I know that is not our image for many.
I do what I can to promote a pro-life image but the facts are that anti-Republicanism, for many, equals pro-abortion. I’m not willing to be pro-Republican.
Shea does an OK job here, though he himself also comes under attack on occasion. I suspect this is easier to pull off as an individual rather than group blog. Selective readings are tougher to pull off when one is the only author in question.
Brett–we cross posted. In reply, you have to realize that those other people don’t post as often on any topic, and don’t post as often on issues impacting abortion, and don’t scream as loudly as they do. The issue of VN’s image on abortion is not shaped merely by counting up the personal opinions of the people in the blog roll. You have to look at the posts dealing with abortion, and what the thrust of those posts are. They are overwhelmingly attacks, and rancorous ones, on pro-life efforts and pro-life people, and defense of pro-abortion officials and people precisely in the efforts they are doing that advance abortion.
Again, I think your accounting is influenced by artificial selection.
But I still want to know, who are the one or two of us? Really.
Brett there are some of you who I don’t know well, so I am giving the benefit of the doubt by saying it could be several. Plus some people have left and others don’t ever talk about abortion. Numbers of people is not the issue. It’s numbers and intensity of posts.
Furthermore, I can tell you with absolute certainty that a major factor for many of our contributors that decreases their posts on abortion is that there is a very good chance that a post will be ignored or a debate will erupt in the comboxes about VN’s pro-life creds.
We hope for substantive conversation here and posts about abortion almost never get that. I know that has stopped me on days (unlike today) when I have the discipline not to engage in flame wars.
For instance, both Pentimento and I have been attacked for being “orthodox” at a “dissident” blog. Sometimes it’s just not worth the hassle.
I think this is what is worth honing in on.
It is apparent that many VN posters have absolutely no compunction about criticizing Thomas Peters, Austin Ruse, “Catholyc Voter”, Robert George, George Weigel, and others. And often those posts lead to even wider combox criticism of those individuals and pro-lifers in general (as well as pushback). These contributors are apparently OK with that.
On the other hand, you hold back from criticizing Planned Parenthood or pro-choice politicians because you are afraid that doing so will open the floodgates to criticism of VN and some of its contributors and a generally unproductive discussion.
Do you start to get how some might respond to this? That those who support pro-choice politicians must be spared from criticism, but it’s open season on those who claim to be pro-life?
“On the other hand, you hold back from criticizing Planned Parenthood or pro-choice politicians because you are afraid that doing so will open the floodgates to criticism of VN and some of its contributors and a generally unproductive discussion.”
NOT TRUE.
Rather, as has been said many times, often we feel there is no need to restate what others have said. The blog is not a news blog (though it discusses news). It is not an echo chamber just to fall in and echo the chosen cause of the day, chosen mostly for political interests.
Moreover, as Brett points out. WE DO such posts. Often they are ignored. Indeed, often I find what is said in our posts, a few weeks or months later, others will say. Then they will go and act like we have been silent on it, when we actually were ahead of the game. Here is an example of such a post: http://vox-nova.com/2010/03/02/in-a-culture-of-sin-lent-shows-us-how-to-be-counter-cultural/
Actually I don’t hold back on criticizing PP or pro-choice politicians. I don’t usually write about abortion politically. Usually I write about it philosophically.
In any case, I do see how this will be taken. I think that’s exactly the problem. It will be taken as fear of criticism of VN (as you put it) when fear of criticism has nothing to do with it. Hope for substantive conversation is one thing. Fear of criticism is another. However, if you want to call someone a pro-abort, it’s easy enough to conflate the two. More self-fulfilling prophecy.
Am I pro-gay marriage because I stopped writing about it after this debacle?
http://vox-nova.com/2009/06/21/on-the-futility-of-certain-arguments-in-the-same-sex-marriage-debate/
What would be helpful to support you from such “orthodoxy” attacks?
Not sure what you’re getting at here. Could you clarify?
The videos could lead to the defunding of Planned Parenthood the same way that the previous videos led to the defunding of ACORN. The videos cause a controversy, and politicians respond. This has already happened in New Jersey.
Except that the ACORN videos were lies. Does the end justify the means now?
Except that the ACORN videos were lies. Does the end justify the means now?
I’m not sure why you think the videos were lies, but, in any event, my comment was in response to Brett asking how the videos might lead to Planned Parenthood being defunded.
How can videos be lies? You mean they were edited to show something that didn’t happen?
A rather naive thing to say. The Breitbart-O’Keefe ACORN videos were indeed lies because they were “heavily edited”, pretending to portray a picture that never happened. The investigation found that ACORN had broken no laws. The unedited videos were remarkably different from the edited youtube sensation. I find it a little distasteful that some of you have such a cavalier attitude toward such a grievous sin as bearing false witness.
The investigation found that ACORN had broken no laws.
The two investigations that looked into this (in New York and California) found that the ACORN employees hadn’t committed a crime not because what was depicted in the videos didn’t happen, but because what was depicted in the videos wasn’t a crime (in other words, it’s not a crime to explain how a pimp could better engage in sex trafficking so long as you don’t actually do anything to help them).
Of course, the fact that doing this isn’t criminal doesn’t mean it’s not reprehensible, nor does it mean that the videos were lies.
…Just curious, but have we decided whose pe–sorry, er, pro-life cred reserve–is bigger yet?
If not, let me just suggest that we agree that I’m more pro-life than all of you, that you need to work hard to get up to my level, and then get back to said work and stop tearing lumps out of one another.
…Unless somebody can quantify for me exactly how many babies this pissing contest has saved?
Abortion will never be stopped with the present strategies because abortion is the result of fear and hatred intruding into everyone’s psyche every minute of the day. There is a lot of hatred and fear in the pro-life and pro-abortion groups that needs to be brought out into the light for discussion.
It is very evident in the blogs where there is an obvious hatred for secular society which is supported by an obvious sense of moral superiority by those who speak out against secularism.
A one day pro-life march will not change anything. If you truly are pro-life why not sacrifice everything and walk around the country praying the Rosary and raising millions of dollars and awareness for the suffering of women who get abortions. However, neither the right nor the left is willing to make such a sacrifice. It is easier to do the easier thing to satisfy one’s self-righteousness and believe one is truly a disciple of the truth.
Entrapment is used against the poor in society. Occasionally you’ll see a story of a high scale prostitution sting. Even more rarely will see a story of a drug bust on a powerful person. This is predominantly a tactic used against the poor and vulnerable. If you aren’t one of the poor and vulnerable it is easy to cast aspersions about people getting what they deserve.
M.Z.,
There you are. I was hoping that I could engage with you some more on your position.
Do you realize that you are characterizing the PP worker as “poor and vulnerable”, while you are ignoring the poor and vulnerable girls caught up in sex trafficking whose pimp might come to the PP clinic seeking help and advice?
And setting aside the legitimacy of LiveAction’s tactics here, do you think the PP worker exercised proper judgment and acted appropriately?
A low level counselor working for a nonprofit would generally qualify as poor and vulnerable. If you fall under a “zero-tolerance” policy (and not just on paper) you are generally in that group.
I’m ignoring the sex trafficking for the following reason. If a woman tells her husband you can sleep with any woman you desire today and I won’t consider it adultery, I would not treat his sleeping with another woman as evidence of an adulterous heart. (Contrive any similar scenario for those who wish to be pedantic over the preciseness of the analogy.) Provided an artificial situation, the worker made a bad choice. This isn’t evidence that she has been presented with this choice regularly or even previously. Sex traffickers may indeed use PP clinics regularly, but this isn’t evidence of it.
As for sex trafficking in general and its prevention, I’ll defer to experts on the matter. Such was ancillary to LivaAction’s purpose and they don’t purport to be an advocacy organization of behalf of the sexually exploited. At least for organizations that advocate for prostitutes, they are generally supportive of prostitutes being able to receive health care without the threat of opening a criminal investigation. Such is probably not the case with experts in sex trafficking, but I’ll let them speak for themselves.
M.Z.,
I replied below.
MZ defers to what he believes to be the position of organizations that “advocate for prostitutes” that they are supportive of (under age) prostitutes being able to receive (abortions) without the threat of opening a criminal investigation.
Brett, you can think that MZ does not represent VN. But this kind of perspective, IN RESPONSE TO SYSTEMATIC PLANNED PARENTHOOD ABUSE, is the kind of content and tone that I see as the headline at VN when abortion and the battle against it comes up 80% of the time. MZ is the “pro-life” face of VN, at the moment.
We all represent VN. But in another sense MZ represents MZ and brettsalkeld represents brettsalkeld.
To call one contributor the pro-life face of VN is utterly arbitrary. You are admitting to selective reading of the sources, which is what I have been saying all along.
FYI: I am closer to you than to MZ on this question, but it may be worth pointing out that such true believers as Joe Hargrave are asking similar questions to MZ’s.
HK — I was responding to Brett’s claim that VN contributors hold back on posting on abortion because of character of the discussion that tends to ensue.
If you disagree with that, or you feel that your criticism of Judge Judy is sufficient evidence to the contrary, your quarrel is with Brett, not me.
My addition to that is that other VN contributors do not seem to have such reservations in criticizing the likes of Robert George, George Weigel, Abp. Chaput, and others.
–
One of my favorite VN posts was when you challenged TPM for criticizing Christine O’Donnell’s talk about masturbation. Not because I’m a particular fan of O’Donnell’s but it was good to see Catholic teaching being defended.
But compare the tone of that post to the typical one against someone like George Weigel. First, the title makes clear this is a “limited” defense. Second, it is a defense of O’Donnell rather than an attack on Marshall. Third, Kyle backs down after what I would consider a pretty lame explanation from Josh Marshall.
Criticism of people like Thomas Peters is served piping hot and the fires are kept hot in defense.. Defenses of Church teaching and the unborn come out lukewarm, and are blown even colder at the first hint of resistance.
I didn’t back down, but noted and linked to what Marshall explained was the meaning of his language. I continued to call his application of the term “the Crazy(TM)” unhelpful and inaccurate.
Glad you liked the post.
Brett–
I read your original as along the lines of, “If I wrote about abortion more, you people would just come along and turn it into a referendum on the orthodoxy of VN, so it’s your own darn fault!” I apologize if that was unfair. It seemed that you were more concerned about creating a forum where your fellow contributors might be criticized than they have about others.
I tend not to engage in debates about SSM for similar reasons. It is now apparent that many people see opposition to SSM as tantamount to bigotry and hatred, and I’m not inclined to invite that. Where I am now is seeing SSM as the culmination of a number of trends that have been in place for a long time that I don’t think we have the will to stop, and thus all speaking out about it accomplishes is bringing out bad feelings.
Does that make me pro-SSM? No. Is it the most honorable or courageous position? I’m not certain of that, either.
That being said, I didn’t see the thread you cited as being particularly nasty or unproductive, particularly judging on the low standards of Internet discourse on contentious social issues. And it seems to me a good amount of heat and misreading was brought about by other VN contributors.
M.Z.’s response to this Planned Parenthood controversy is not to focus on the fact that Planned Parenthood victimizes women and minors, nor that now we have hard evidence of it. He focuses only on whether it is technically legal entrapment and whether legal entrapment generally protects the “poor and vulnerable,” which is the category he puts Planned Parenthood in in this situation.
Brett this is a prime example of why VN has the image it has on abortion discussions. This kind of response, and often worse, dominates the tone and content of VN discussions about abortion, and comments like Brett’s fall into the minority in frequency and stridency.
Matt
So, you mean, one can’t question the means, as long as the ends are what you want? Ends justify the means?
Let me walk through this.
We already know that Planned Parenthood performs millions of abortions a year. We already know their influence on politics — it was at a PP event that President Obama delivered his promise that the first thing he would do is pass FOCA.
The videos also displayed that they may be willing to be complicit with prostitution and human trafficking.
And the reaction from VN is some chin-stroking about entrapment.
This is the type of stuff that inspires the “debate club at Auschwitz” stuff — the notion that in the face of great evil, the thing to do is have a scholarly discussion about some tangential technicality.
But OK. Maybe that’s just your style. The O’Keefe hidden camera tactics aren’t my personal cup of tea either. Maybe you just think a scholarly attitude is the best approach.
But this explanation is belied by your VN’s explosive response to Thomas Peter’s criticism, and other issues that strike many readers as lower priorities (e.g. http://vox-nova.com/2009/02/03/against-suvs/).
Now, imagine the reaction of a first time reader, coming in with either pro-life or pro-choice prejudices.
Hey,
Does my response count at all? I know no one is interested in talking about what I said, but you don’t need to go proving my points so blatanly for me.
I write a post supportive of the LiveAction video and in my own comment thread all the VN critics act like it never happened.
This is my “explosive” response to Thomas Peters? A note saying I’m not sure he needs to be quite so triumphal even if what happened was a good thing.
This is getting crazier and crazier.
Henry,
What is your opinion on the PP story?
I said the following in the Q and A thread ( http://vox-nova.com/2011/02/07/qa/#comment-99639 ); I think it should give you a general impression of my views:
From what I understand, when Rose exposed PP in Indiana, what she was doing was legal and can be used as evidence. Moreover, though people might not like the idea of a conspiracy, the fact that many of the same actions will be done from clinic to clinic suggests that at least a group within PP are advocating illegal activities. I think anything illegal, especially in regards to children, deserves as much an expose and condemnation as anything the media reports about fallen clergy, with similar kinds of penalties demanded against PP.
However, I have not been following the recent work against PP because my interest, studies, work has been elsewhere. The last I really discussed it was when my father was still alive, and he was trying to find legal means to deal with the problems he found with PP in Indiana (child abuse and neglect was a specialty of his, and when he found it being protected, it angered him).
Henry,
Thanks for your response. Very thoughtful.
I think if we all did a better job of assuming the good intentions of the other party, even in spite of inflammatory posts which may be written in haste or fueled by misdirected passion, we’d be in a much better position to come together on important issues like this one.
I see M.Z.’s premises as the equivalent of saying “Entrapment is evil, and we aren’t called to do evil in order to accomplish good. We’re criticizing them of supporting victimization, while we lurk in the bushes, ready to pounce.” It’s not that hard to extrapolate his premises from his post, and see the logic behind them. All it requires is a little effort on our part.
I’ve asked M.Z. some clarifying questions above, and we’ll see where he stands on this issue.
My recommendation was that we would do better to avoid worrying about what was said, but rather to try and understand the principles behind their position. Everyone is motivated by some truth that they perceive as important – which means that there is truth in almost any position, no matter how it gets twisted in the final delivery. If we put in the effort to locate the truth (even if it isn’t specifically what was said), we’d all come out further ahead.
There’s huge a difference between merely questioning the means, and only questioning the means while painting Planned Parenthood (!) as the poor and vulnerable in this situation and ignoring the elephant in the room of Planned Parenthood and their syustematic abuse of the poor and vulnerable. And when that is your posture towards these issues all the time, it gives a tangible impression. You revel in it, and Brett resents it, but that’s the impression.
Matt,
You would be the first to object someone took hidden cameras into pro-life pregnancy centers and caught their staffers saying things they shouldn’t say. In fact, pro-lifers were outraged at the movie 12th and Delaware, where the pro-life pregnancy center agreed to cooperate and the filming was done with permission and cameras right out in the open.
This kind of technique could be used to embarrass any large organization. It could be used to publicly identify priests who gave approval in the confessional to use contraceptives. It’s like torture. If you approve it when it works for you, you have no right to disapprove of it when it works against you.
Here’s the thing: undercover agents have gone into pregnancy centers. What have they produced? NOTHING. The smoking gun that NARAL has claimed is happening in NYC centers? That they say abortion can cause birth control and psychological harm. Both of which are true! That’s the best they can come up with. What a joke. What a worse joke if someone were to respond to that by complaining about entrapment. The response is, and has been, by me and everyone else, NOT to complain about entrapment, but to point out that pro-life centers are squeaky clean, and these investigations prove it. Abortionists lie to women, pro-life centers do not. That’s the upshot of these investigations. But MZ and shills like yourself respond here by defending Planned Parenthood. No matter how an abortion issue comes up, you can predict exactly what approach the 80% volume voice at VN is going to take towards it. It has earned VN an image. There’s only one way for folks like Brett to change that, by speaking from a real pro-life perspective more often, and it won’t be easy.
errata…”that they say abortion can cause BREAST CANCER and psychological harm”
We may disagree here Matt, but I see stridency as detrimental to my positions, and unChristian to boot. I have no desire to compete for stridency with either those I agree with or those I disagree with, with my co-bloggers or with VN’s critics.
I hope that in shouting less, I am heard more, even if that means no one consciously remembers what I said.
The impression one gets from a post belongs to the reader of the post and is created by one’s subjective response to what is being read. It is that subjective response that will either influence one to agree, disagree or be indiffernet. When there is disagreement the subjective response to that disagreement will then influence the reader to question the writer in a respectful cooperative disposition in order to gain more clarity about the writer’s thinking on the matter, or the subjective response will result in an attack against the writer and the ideas expressed. This attack is a form of violence and a form of character assassination which is against the teachings of the Church. It is hostility that arouses the those who resonate with the critics hostility and creates a subculture of death which is defended by that group as self-righteous indignation.
On a spiritual level it attacks the integrity of the writer’s soul and harms that person who is doing nothing more than asking us to look away from the obviously mortal sin and look at what creates this evil act that all of us are opposed to. He is saying that there is something here you are not seeing that is critical to understand if you want to stop this evil action.
That is not progressive or liberal, it is the act of seeking the truth.
Then shoot for the charitable equivalent of stridency, however you wish to label it or attempt it. The cranks overpower with their volume, and that is the issue whether you wish it were or not.
Matt,
Here is the thing. Some of the people that you knock are some of the most beautiful writers on this very blog. They have very healing words and kind thoughts and they help others open up their wounded souls. I mean sometimes it’s just nice to talk about God. When do you ever do that over at C.V.? I mean all I see over there is this policital issue or this politician is failing us in this way or that way… yada yada. Or here is a picture of the Pope, add a funny comment. Or let’s bash this Nun for letting us down, or lets petition this bishop about a priest that is failing us in some way or another. It’s all a stressful heap of garbage when you try and sift through it. Where is the beauty? Your blog is more about pushing forth an agenda than just helping to bring people to God out of love or kindness. So before you put down some of the bloggers over here, take a step back, because I’ve never seen any writer over at C.V. write beautiful posts like Henry can. Also, what is charitable about using the term ‘catholyc’? Talk about cranks over powering with their volume.
I do.
In my view that means letting whatever cranks (you and I have different ideas of who a crank is, but nevertheless) have their volume. Competing with them for volume compromises my position. I don’t think Christians fight fire with fire.
As soon as you fight the devil with his own weapons you’ve already lost.
M.Z. said:
I’m ignoring the sex trafficking for the following reason. If a woman tells her husband you can sleep with any woman you desire today and I won’t consider it adultery, I would not treat his sleeping with another woman as evidence of an adulterous heart. (Contrive any similar scenario for those who wish to be pedantic over the preciseness of the analogy.)
M.Z.,
Your analogy completely fails as the man is not violating the marriage agreement between he and his wife, because his wife gave the man permission to sleep with someone else. (I’m setting aside the moral considerations of this situation.)
Your analogy would be applicable to the PP situation if a person other than the wife says to the man “I can set up an opportunity for you to sleep with another woman without your wife’s knowledge,” and the man takes up that opportunity. Under that scenario, wouldn’t you say that there was evidence that the man had an adulterous heart? Do you see the difference between this and your first (faulty) analogy?
Sex traffickers may indeed use PP clinics regularly, but this isn’t evidence of it.
Yes, but isn’t this evidence that the PP worker has poor judgment when it comes to dealing with underage girls, much less girls caught in sex trafficking?
At least for organizations that advocate for prostitutes, they are generally supportive of prostitutes being able to receive health care without the threat of opening a criminal investigation.
We’re not talking about normal prostitutes here, we’re talking about underage girls. There is a reason why reporting requirements are a good idea: because if underage girls (whether prostitutes or not) are pregnant, they’ve got a bigger problems than the pregnancy — they’re being taken advantage of and need help from parents, community, etc.
I’m still stunned to see that you don’t seem to have a problem with PP workers not complying with reporting requirements for underage prostitutes.
In the news today, PP itself is saying that it will “retrain thousands of staff members across the country on its rules for reporting possible dangers to minors, and would automatically fire anyone who violated them.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/us/08parenthood.html?_r=3&smid=tw-nytimes
PP sees a problem, but you don’t?
BA
And you know the reason. Abortion is wrong is a given. Preaching to the choir is bad, trying to debate them to believe what they already believe is worse. There is no need for people to just constantly echo what is already a given.
I would ask you to very carefully re-consider the notion that a Vox Nova reader, particularly one who might land here following a link to one of the more incendiary posts, really represents a choir for whom the evil of abortion is a given that need not be preached about.
To expand, I would guess that that notion that, say, Newt Gingrich is a hypopcritical blowhard is much more of a “given” among VN’s readership than that abortion is an evil on a magnitude the Church teaches it is.
I think that’s an important point, John, and one which could deserve some careful thought by the orthodox and responsible writers here — of which there are certainly a number.
I think some writers in particular (MM, Henry, MZ, or instance) see their primary purpose in writing as counteracting what they perceive as overwhelming Americanism and right-wing leanings in the Catholic blogsphere in general. They perceive that as the choir.
And yet, there’s pretty clearly also a uniquely Vox Nova choir which has gradually accreted over time. My experience of the Vox Nova vibe is heavily formed by the fact that I seem to find myself defending Catholic teaching on issues ranging from abortion and birth control to gay marriage and pornography against attacks from regular readers such as David Nichols, Digby, adamv, etc. than any of the actual contributors do.
Now, silence is a bad argument, and certainly I’m aware that I spend far, far too much time engaging in “Someone is wrong on the internet!!!” discussions, so I wouldn’t take that as meaning that people don’t care about Catholic teaching. But when this is combined with constant attacks by a few authors (again, the “big three” primarily) against the pro-life movement in particular and culturally/morally traditional Catholicism in general, I can see how it would give people the wrong impression.
I should note, this is one of the things that I find refreshing about Brett’s writing in particular — that he does take the time to write basic posts defending Catholic stands on issues like birth control, even while refusing to avoid hard questions about the topic.
DC
But when this is combined with constant attacks by a few authors (again, the “big three” primarily) against the pro-life movement in particular and culturally/morally traditional Catholicism in general, I can see how it would give people the wrong impression.
We write against traditional Catholicism? Really!?? We oppose Catholic morality? Really? Where are we doing that?
Catholicism not in the sense of doctrines, but Catholicism as a community. Typically you attack them for being hyprocrites or for not actually being as traditional as they think themselves to be.
Well and good, I’m sure sometimes they are hypocrites and sometimes they are not as traditional as they think themselves to be. But the fact that it is pretty much invariably criticism that you choose to write will cause many people to simply assume that you are not with them but against them.
People who frequently write in support of a movement or group of people can get away with criticism of that group without seeming like an outsider. If one seldom or never makes the effort to act as if one is on the inside of the group, then if one criticizes one is seen as an enemy, not a friendly critic.
It may not be fair, and it may not fit with self perception, but this is how people respond to these kinds of things.
It’s probably worth adding: I certainly don’t think that people are required to blog on a given topic. People blog for all sorts of reasons, and there are lots of topics that people don’t choose to blog about. (I did not, for instance, blog about the LiveAction videos at all, nor do I plan to. I suppose people could read this as some sort of indifference, but it’s mostly that there are certain kinds of topics I blog about, and this one just didn’t move to me action.)
But I think that johnmcg and Blackadder and others have raised a valid point about the way in which some prominent members of the Vox Nova set of writers end up coming off, due to what they choose to write about and how.
DC,
Not an unreasonable point of view.
And if you notice a consistent lack of commentary on a particularly topic, you are free to have a personal opinion as how they are coming off. I think you would also agree that the accusation that “you have not written on abortion, therefore you support baby-killing” is unjust and unfair.
BTW,just for the record, I am all for the LiveAction video. I think its great. I am much more comfortable with exposing illegal activities at PP and barring them from federal contracts for that reason than having to support hypocritical politicans that claim funding is fungible and funding is not fungible almost in the same breath as the grantee varies.
If each of us is honest with ourselves could we answer the question of whether or not we love our opposition? If not, then we each make a contribution to the culture of death and contribute to the evil that influences women to get abortions.
If you cannot see this with the intelligence and grace that God has given you then keep on debating while the inadequate and incompetent strategies continue to fail to stop abortion and continue the suffering of women who choose to abort.
So, how about that local sports team, uh, I mean, that post I wrote? How ’bout that post I wrote?
You know. The one with all the question marks in it. Those indicate questions. Ones I’d be interested in hearing answers to.
Also, I kind of thought my last paragraph was worthy of some comment. Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?
Must be my ego.
To think I could write a post about abortion and actually have a conversation about it! I even thought the question marks might help spur things on, so it wasn’t just choir preaching. No? Well, it was worth a shot.
Brett,
I like your post. And I responded to some of your questions way up at the top of this thread. As for the other questions I didn’t respond to, like LiveAction’s methods, I don’t know.
And your last paragraph is spot on. The lasting way to change the abortion culture is not through LiveAction videos, but through changing the hearts of minds of the people around us.
Thanks Thales. And to the few others who did respond to some of my questions above.
“First, what is LiveAction’s plan when things do go wrong? Do they ever get called out for this? What do they do then?”
I think Planned Parenthood would have highlighted it if things had ever gone bad in the true kind of badness. Lila has been doing this to them for years now and they’ve been nationally alerted to her that long.
“How many attempted videos are there for every big bust? Does PP usually pass with flying colors, while incidences like this are the exception, or do most PP clinics and employees operate with little regard for the law?”
Lila has lots and lots of videos of PP engaging in their normal lying and victimizing. In the last month alone on this campaign there were six videos. Again PP would be trumpeting it if there were many more, because they have internal commands to notify HQ of all the times this has happened. If there were many failures, we would know about it from PP.
“I wasn’t sure if there was any way that evidence of illegality could directly compromise PP’s funding (you break the law, you lose money!), or if such evidence would just be useful in getting pro-life politicians elected. Matt emphasized the latter. Is there anything I should know about the former?”
It’s possible. It involves obscure areas of law, so it’s a hard question to answer here.
“And that also got me thinking, how useful are such videos in galvanizing the electorate? Very, I would hope. I’m not sure one video, however damning, is gonna do it.”
Again this isn’t one, it’s six in the last month alone, and bunches over the past two or three years.
“Does every successful video make PP more and more cautious? Does our success in this video make future videos of the same ilk more difficult to make? Is it possible to get a veritable flood of damning videos before PP gets wise to it all?”
You would think so, but again Lila has been on their high alert radar for maybe three years now, and she just keeps getting more evidence. The yield has been increasing, not decreasing.
Here’s the bottom line: murderers lie and victimize. It’s systematic. They can’t function without it. They can’t meet their profit margin. So PP can’t ever clean up their act, because abortion is as unclean as any practice the world has ever known. Thus anyone who is able to show what they are doing will always show decay. It is impossible to practice vice virtuously. This is what the industry IS. It has peeked out into the sunlight in other ways that the mainstream media has ignored: abortionists jailed, abused minors aborted secretly, etc. This has been going on for a long time and it’s not an exception. Prolife people who research the industry and talk to people who left it know this all too well. It’s why, when the issue of government funding of abortion or even of the industry “segregated” from the abortions comes up, we react so negatively. That is the objective response, if you know what is going on in there.
If someone on VN said this about the military industrial complex, or any other massively entrenched social evil in the Sollicitudo Rei Socialis sense, everyone here would nod and second the notion. Say it about the abortion industrial complex, and it’s controversial at best, with ample snide skepticism on top of it from folks not like Brett. I think part of that is an unfamiliarity with the nitty gritty degredation of this industry. Familiarize yourself. If you don’t have time, realize you don’t and give the benefit of the doubt to people who do consider it as bad as any other social evil.
Then whenever abortion comes up as a topic, do an experiment: consider it in exactly all its aspects but by replacing “abortion” with “capital punishment” or “school of the americas” or “war on terror” or some other liberal cause. Then, react the same way you would to those.
I find myself quite sympathetic to the argument that PP won’t ever be able to fully clean up its act because it is in an inherently dirty business. Interesting.
I am wondering something about the Live Action videos, since they were the catalyst for all of this electronic ink-splashing. I watched three videos on Live Action’s website: one taken in NJ, one in Virginia, and one in the Bronx. The one that I found the most shocking and repellent was the first one, in which the clinic manager seemed to be at best lackadaisical, and at worst gleeful, in abetting the illegal business of the purported pimp. But the one that I found the most interesting was the one taken in the Bronx. I’m from the Bronx. The Planned Parenthood there is in the heart of the South Bronx, on E. 149th Street. It’s a place with a culture of extreme poverty, in which, because of the financial unfeasibility of survival in New York City on public assistance, black market work of all kinds is woven into the fabric of daily life. Add to the mix the influences of single motherhood/absent fatherhood, failing schools, massive unemployment, drug addiction, illegal immigration, and multi-generational welfare dependency, and you have a situation in which the clinic manager and the nurse were probably not shocked at all to encounter a man (apparently a black man) who hints that he’s running a prostitution ring in the neighborhood. That is not shocking in the South Bronx. It’s nothing new. The attitude of many is that it’s survival, and I’m sure the women who were secretly videotaped in the Bronx clinic believed that, in providing the information, they were helping to make the best of a bad situation for the unnamed girls who were supposedly being trafficked.
I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying that those are the cultural norms. I’m not sure what Lila Rose et al. expected the workers in the Bronx PP to do when confronted by a pimp who says he wants services for his “girls.”
In the end, my horse in this race is the one that does the most to counteract the culture of death and evil by at least trying to plant a seed here and there to grow a culture of love. I believe the work of Live Action is important, but that it falls far short of doing anything to change the culture. And also, it’s too easy for the other side to dismiss because it depends on stunts and sensationalism.
If not proclaiming my allegiance to Live Action makes me a dissenter or a Nazi, so be it. I and four generations of my family have been personally devastated by abortion, and I’m personally a lot more interested in talking about Christ’s mercy and showing it to others.
“it falls far short of doing anything to change the culture”
Saying it is only a small percentage of what really needs to be done could be said about every action on every issue. But it’s not what is said here on any action on any issue, except if it is an action against abortion. Making many many more people aware of the fact that these “clinics” are victimizing the poor in those neighborhoods instead of helping them, possibly leading to policy changes cutting government fundng from them, seems to me to be a rather big deal that if it were a liberal issue and some CCHD organization were accomplishing such a goal, the advocates of this cause here would have volunteered a lot of good to say about it and not had the orthodox minority merely utter a reluctant glass-mostly-empty statement at the bottom of a comment box. This is just an example of how abortion is generally dealt with here. Pro-life community organizers get, at best, backhanded compliments; all other Alinsnyites get enthusiastic praise and bombastic attacks on their opponents. It has nothing to do with Republicanism. It’s a tangible difference in tone, content, and enthusiasm when it comes to this issue as compared to any other issue supposedly considered part of the consistent garment.
“Pro-life community organizers get, at best, backhanded compliments; all other Alinsnyites get enthusiastic praise and bombastic attacks on their opponents. It has nothing to do with Republicanism. It’s a tangible difference in tone, content, and enthusiasm when it comes to this issue as compared to any other issue supposedly considered part of the consistent garment.”
Right, this was your original argument. But this is not the issue I was bringing up in my comment above, and does not answer my questions.
You don’t have to answer it. You are just exemplifying the point.
Actually, if you read my comment again, you will see that I am not in fact “exemplifying the point” (by which I assume you mean that I am proving your argument that VN contributors are not sufficiently respectful of pro-life activism). How is it that, if I express reservations — in a combox — about the techniques used by Live Action, I’m somehow representing VN as insufficiently pro-life? You have misread my intentions completely, or perhaps I failed to make them clear. I strove to raise issues that I think are important as someone familiar both with the tragic ethos of a certain subculture of the Bronx — incidentally, the abortion capital of America — and with the healing mercy of Jesus Christ. Those topics may be totally tangential to this discussion (though they should not be), but they are, as I suggested above, the most important to me in this argument.
Please read my entire comment before casting aspersions.
Pentimento,
For those who believe (1) that abortionists are murderers who perform abortions either because it is the only way they can enjoy murdering people or because they are doing to make lots of money, and (2) in addition to the babies being killed, the women who seek abortions are blameless victims being manipulated by the abortion industry purely for profit, any criticism of the “pro-life” movement, or any attempt to understand abortion providers, is like a philosophy teacher requiring his class to ponder the meaning of life when the fire alarm goes off instead of evacuating the building. A more reasonable question, under the circumstances, is why people who believe this limit themselves to nonviolent means when a million plus babies are being murdered and a million plus women are being victimized every year.
Forgive my denseness, David, but I don’t get your point.
Perhaps “casting aspersions” was too strong. But at least read my comment before dismissing my points out of hand.
Well, if you read my 816 am reply, you will know precisely which point I think is being exemplified.
Sorry, Matt, but not everyone has time to scroll through dozens of comments to glean a point. It would be helpful to everyone in the discussion if we could all be clear about what we mean, instead of making reference to vague “points” that we simply expect to be understood.
To your points, “I’m not sure what Lila Rose et al. expected the workers in the Bronx PP to do when confronted by a pimp who says he wants services for his “girls.””
She expected them to do exactly what they did–facilitate the victimization. And they obliged. Because their presence in that community is predatory, not only with full awareness of those circumstances you describe, but with the intention to exploit them for profit.
Yes, and there are complicated social factors that keep this population in the frequently-exchanged roles of victims and victimizers.
Now, please note that my pointing this out does not mitigate my anti-abortion stance. Nor does it make apologies for the response of the clinic workers. If you think that trying to understand a situation means that you support evil, you’ll need to back up such an assertion with evidence.
Moreover, questioning the tactics of Lila Rose et al. is not enough to tarnish one’s pro-life creds, paint one as a Catholic dissenter, nor cast one into the outer darkness. Again, you’d need evidence to credibly make such an inflammatory statement.
I didn’t make that targeted assertion. And you haven’t explained the relevance of those complicated factors to the issues I am raising.
As I mentioned earlier, Matt, the issues I was raising above were tangential to the discussion. To quote my earlier post:
“In the end, my horse in this race is the one that does the most to counteract the culture of death and evil by at least trying to plant a seed here and there to grow a culture of love. . . . I believe the work of Live Action is important . . . . but . . . . I’m personally a lot more interested in talking about Christ’s mercy and showing it to others [than parsing the meaning of one's level of support for Live Action's tactics].”
[Sorry bald Mexican, I can't let that through. Way too inflammatory.]
Question to Matt Bowman, What is the action to take against abortion? What are the causes of abortion?
Ronald, the action NOT to take on a blog is to only or mostly talk about it in the context of attacking efforts and people working against it and defending people in their efforts to promote it.
Matt, you haven’t answered my question below.
Ronald, it’s like the comment I made to you that MZ censored: The truth is we don’t protest at abortion clinics because we think we don’t all have a hand in killing babies. The truth is we protest because we know we do. Merely quoting Dostoevsky and saying we are guiltly is likewise no substitute for doing something about it, nor an excuse for ignoring it and therefore facilitating in the rest of the things we say and do. For MZ to say that all organizations do nothing toward actually ending abortion, and the only thing any are doing is focusing on the Supreme Court, demonstrates an utter ignorance of the facts, and an arrogant refusal to deal with the facts. That is the kind of abortion-talk I am referring to as poison to VN if it desires a pro-life image. Pro-life pregnancy centers are the first of many tips on the iceberg of things that are being done in spades by the pro-life movement. Lila Rose isn’t working to appoint a Supreme Court justice either–it’s just convenient for MZ to pretend that she and everyone else is doing that and that alone. It’s easier to excuse hostility by VN bloggers like MZ toward people who do think abortion important, and who therefore show that the concerns he really wants to focus on are quite often trumped if he were really giving abortion the priority it objectively observes.
Matt, First of all I do not quote Dostoevsky because I’ve never read him. I write what I observe. You do not seem to understand that the underlying causes of abortion need to be addressed. Do you know the underlying causes?
Are you ready to sacrifice every comfort you have to end abortion and exhibit the kind of faith that Christ would want us to live? If so, let me know.
And if Matt, not being Christ Himself, falls short of your challenge, does that mean the rest of us need not do anything?
–
I’m quite sure Matt is familiar with what you consider to be the underlying causes.
However, I also strongly suspect that 2012 Unites States is not a historically difficult environment in which to raise a child. And we do not have historically low access to contraceptives. Yet we have historically high abortion rates. So, it may be the case that legal efforts, while not completely sufficient, may be the most effective means of lowering abortion.
Not to mention that other means do nothing to address the injustice that a class of people does not fall under the law’s protection.
So, I for one, will not wait for Matt to satisfy me that he completely grasps all of the underlying causes and has completely committed himself to the cause before I pitch in.
John, I like your comments and most of the time I agree with them. This one I don’t agree with because I do not believe he nor you is familiar with what I see as the underlying cause and its remedy.
We have a faith that is built on the mystery of God’s love and the mystery of how grace and sin affect each of us at every moment.
We are either connected in love with one another or we are connected in sin and the consequences of each materialize where they may. I am tired this evening so if you want to read more I will respond tomorrow.
Henry also alludes to this spiritual reality.
JPII talked about the law of ascent and the law of descent.
Quantum entanglement is another term for it.
Pentimento,
My point above (no more room for replies) was that to many in the pro-life movement (including Matt Bowman — and be assured he will correct me if I am wrong), Planned Parenthood is so evil, that to worry about Lila Rose’s tactics, or the culture of poor neighborhoods in the Bronx, is to strain out the gnat and swallow the camel. When over a million babies a year are being legally murdered, and over a million women are being duped into having abortions, for which they will suffer such things as post-abortion syndrome and breast cancer, bringing down the abortion industry is of such a high priority that anyone who does not have it first on their agenda is badly mistaken. This is not my personal view, but what I am saying is that it’s doubtful there can ever be a meeting of the minds between those who solidly identify with the pro-life movement as defined by the major pro-life activists and organizations, and those (like many on Vox Nova) who “have issues” with that movement. I think that those who strongly support the pro-life movement feel that if you are not with them, you are against them, or at least you are part of the problem, not part of the solution (no matter how personally opposed to abortion you may be).
OK, I get it, thanks. I’m a little irony-challenged.
I think these right-wing zealots just can’t handle nuance. They can’t grasp that you guys aren’t pro-abortion, just anti-anti-abortion. You carp and whine about every pro-life effort, by anybody at anytime. You always vote for pro-abortion candidates every time you vote, but not but not because they’re pro-abortion. You mostly write about abortion when they say you don’t care about the baby killing.
Of course your feelings are hurt when they conclude from all that you’re not really against abortion. It’s so mean of them to make that unfounded charge.
David Nickol is as avid an opponent of the pro-life movement and a rejecter of its principles as anyone who has ever posted on this blog. So for him to comment on whether people can have a meeting of the minds when they do, unlike him, both plausibly claim to be pro-life and accepting of Catholic teaching, is speaking out of his league. I think there can be lots of examples of true blue Catholic “liberals” who are pro-life working with Catholic conservatives who are pro-life, even if those liberals have issues with the movement. The question here is whether when 80% of the things a group says about the topic is stridently anti-pro-life people and efforts, that group of people overall is really exhibiting their being pro-life liberals. I contend it is not. Brett and Pentimento can change that, but it will require that VN’s voice on abortion start to sound a lot more like theirs and a lot less like the loudest frequent bloggers on this issue now. And since i’ve said that four or five times, that might exhaust my thoughts on the subject.
So for him to comment on whether people can have a meeting of the minds when they do, unlike him, both plausibly claim to be pro-life and accepting of Catholic teaching, is speaking out of his league.
In my personal opinion, there are a number of things pro-life leaders expect of ordinary folk to assent to if the ordinary folk want to call themselves pro-life. Among them would be the following:
1. Abortion must be made illegal regardless of what effect that would have on the rate of abortion.
2. Abortionists are murderers—and they know it.
3. Planned Parenthood’s goal is to maximize the number of abortions in order to boost their (nonprofit) profits.
3. Women who have abortions have diminished culpability because they have been deceived by the abortion industry.
4. Women who have abortions have diminished culpability because so often they are in a tight spot and have no other way out.
5. As a consequence of 3 and 4, if abortion is criminalized, it must be made a crime for an abortionist to perform an abortion, but it must not be made a crime for a woman to procure an abortion.
6. Although (see 4) women have diminished culpability for abortions because they are often in a tight spot with no alternative, an abortionist who performs an abortion for a woman in a tight spot with no other way out is nevertheless a cold blooded baby killer.
7. Abortion is the most important issue in the country today, dwarfing all others.
8. In voting, if you have a choice between a pro-life candidate with whom you disagree on virtually everything but his pro-life stance, and a pro-choice candidate with whom you agree on everything but his pro-choice stance, you are morally obligated to vote for the pro-life candidate.
9. A fertilized human egg, whether it has a soul or not, is a human person with human rights.
10. It is morally impermissible to perform an abortion to save the life of a mother, even if it means that both the mother and the unborn child will die.
11. Jews, who believe abortion is justified to save the life of the mother because an unborn child has a lesser status than a “postborn” child are wrong, and in an ideal world, their religious beliefs would not be taken into account in formulating antiabortion laws.
12. Obama approves of infanticide.
13. Abortion is a racist attempt by while people to exterminate blacks, which explains why so many abortion clinics are located in areas with a greater than average percent of blacks in the population.
14. Contraception not only doesn’t prevent unwanted pregnancies, it increases unwanted pregnancies.
15. There is no one more innocent and worthy of life than an unborn baby.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_either_with_us,_or_against_us
Nothing new under the sun really – it must be really disturbing for the fine Vox Nova Bloggers – folks who actually embrace the full spectra of the catholic pro life position – to endure this almost stalinistic attack of the 1D anti abortion scene.
Oh well -