By Mary O'Neill McCoy
I love true crime stories, and I’ve also jumped onto the FBI profiling
fandom bandwagon. Because of this, I’ve read about many cases that
involve the gravest of human depravities where people kill not out of
fear or in a moment of passion. They kill because they either just
don’t care or, worse yet, they enjoy the act of killing and maybe even
torture. Knowing what these killers have done and why, I feel
absolutely no sympathy for them when they receive their final fate at
the hands of state-sanctioned executioners.
So, why am I against the death penalty?
Not to sound cliché, but I believe capital punishment puts us at the
level of the murderer. We render someone powerless and then kill them
to satisfy our emotions—it turns us into bullies. In martial arts, we
learned you only do what’s necessary to neutralize the threat. You kill
if you have to, but you don’t if it’s not necessary. To go beyond what
you need to do in hurting someone to render your environment safe is
not honorable. I’m not convinced that we need to execute criminals to
keep us safe from them.
I don’t think people who wish to kill
those that have murdered someone that they love are dishonorable in
their feelings and or even in their intentions. I just don’t believe
that because I can see myself feeling the exact same way if I were in
their shoes (which I am not) changes the fact that it’s still
bullying—less offensive than the original crime, and infinitely so, but
still bullying nonetheless.
I genuinely don’t feel I would be
truly supportive of loved ones left behind in the wake of a fatal crime
by allowing myself to get swept away along with them in their desire to
kill the offender. I wouldn’t lecture them or try to make them feel bad
for their desire for lethal justice; but I, in good conscience, could
not help usher them further down a dark hall of unmitigated dominance
and death.
By Frances Ayers
For most of my life,or at least from the time I could vote,I considered myself Pro-choice,although I believed in restrictions.About six years ago,after watching an abortion video narrated by former Planned Parenthood,Dr Nathanson,I started rethinking my position,and did some research.I read extensively on fetal development and watched other videos on the abortion procedure.I realized how wrong I had been.I was especially struck by the fact that at only 30 days gestation,the unborn child's heart began to beat.
For many years,as a Feminist,I believed in bodily autonomy and didn't feel anyone should have a right to control a woman's reproductive choice,but what I wasn't taking into consideration was that the unborn child was actually a separate person with his or her own DNA and unique personality.I also saw all Pro-lifers as ultra conservative,and didn't realize that there were other liberals out there who were Pro-life but still supported liberal ideals like a clean environment,worker's rights,entitlements for the poor,birth control,affordable housing,and health care.
As I became involved with some of the liberal pro-life groups I came to realize that there were many out there who shared my point of view.I decided to form my own group on Facebook over a year ago,called Liberals For A Consistent Life Ethic.Many liberal Pro-lifers also shared my opposition to the death penalty and euthanasia,so that was the idea behind the group,to network with other like minded individuals.At around that time I also became Administrator and Page Manager of Pro-Life Liberals,also on Facebook.
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I have learned through my encounters with other liberal pro-lifers that there was as much diversity as in the Pro-choice movement, for example, while some PLL's believed in exceptions for rape and the life of the mother,others did not.
By Frank Ludwig
While the idea of women’s equality is
probably as old as male-dominated societies and has been promoted by
writers from Plato to Mary Wollstonecraft, the first notable feminist
movement didn’t come into being until the mid 19th century, following a
number of publications from authors such as Margaret Fuller, Caroline
Norton, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Henrik Ibsen. The aims of First-Wave
Feminism were mainly their right to own property, woman’s suffrage (the
right to vote) and equal rights in other areas such as education and
divorce. None of them demanded the right to abortion – on the contrary,
abortion was seen as a crime that was forced upon women by men who were
unwilling to face up to their responsibilities, and they believed that
women’s equality would end abortion for good:
‘Perhaps there will come a time when... an unmarried mother will not be
despised because of her motherhood... and when the right of the unborn
to be born will not be denied or interfered with.’ – Caroline Norton [1
‘Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an
unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth.’ -
Victoria Woodhull [2]
‘When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to
women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of
as we see fit.’ - Elizabeth Cady Stanton [3]
‘There were four hundred murders annually produced by abortion in this
county alone… There must be a remedy for such a crying evil as this. But
where should it be found, at least begin, if not in the complete
enfranchisement and elevation of women?’ - Elizabeth Cady Stanton [4]
‘Enforced motherhood is a crime against the body of the mother and the
soul of the child... But the crime of abortion is not one in which the
guilt lies solely or even chiefly with the woman... I hesitate not to
assert that most of this crime of child murder, abortion, infanticide,
lies at the door of the male sex.’ - Matilda Joslyn Gage [5]
‘Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.’ – Alice Paul [6]
‘I deplore the horrible crime of child-murder… No matter what the
motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn
innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will
burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh!
Thrice guilty is he who... drove her to the desperation which impels
her to the crime.’ – Susan B. Anthony [7]
From the beginning of the 20th century, feminists also started promoting
birth control, the main protagonists being Marie Stopes in the UK and
Margaret Sanger in the US. And while they campaign for the right to use
contraceptives, both of them are firmly opposed to abortion:
‘We explained what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way -
no matter how early it was performed, it was taking life; that
contraception was the better way, the safer way - it took a little time,
a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because
life had not yet begun.’ – Margaret Sanger [8]
‘I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in
America each year are a disgrace to civilization.’ – Margaret Sanger [9]
‘When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of
ignorance or accident, its children will become the foundation of a new
race. There will be no killing of babies in the womb by abortion, nor
through neglect in foundling homes, nor will there be infanticide.’ –
Margaret Sanger [10]
‘Some ill-informed persons have the notion that when we speak of birth
control, we include abortion as a method. We certainly do not.’ –
Margaret Sanger [10a]
‘I was glad you gave space to the fact that the Queensland Medical
Association is planning an extensive educational campaign against the
evil of abortion.’ – Marie Stopes [11]
When Marie Stopes found out that her friend Avro Manhattan had pressured
one of his lovers into having an abortion, she called him a murderer to
his face. And when William Carpenter named his abortion shop after her,
she took legal action against him. [12]
– However, today’s largest abortion business in the UK bears her name
since it was founded in 6217 RT (1976 CE, eighteen years after her
death).
During and after the World Wars, some of the feminists’ goals were
achieved, but the position of women was still far from being equal. In
6204 RT (1963 CE), Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique
in which she pointed out that many women were unhappy and unfulfilled
as mere housewives and mothers. This was the beginning of Second-Wave
Feminism. [13]
The first abortion activists were Pat Maginnis, Rowena Gurner and Lana Phelan, who travelled and campaigned as the Army of Three in the early Sixties. In 6207 RT (1966 CE) they founded the Association to Repeal Abortion Laws (ARAL) [14] .
At that time gynecologist Dr. Bernard Nathanson and Lawrence Lader, a
journalist who is also counted as a founding board member of Zero Population Growth (ZPG) which demanded abortion rights as a means of population control [15] ,
promoted abortion rights and decided to involve feminists in order to
give their agenda a wider platform ('We're going to have to recruit the
feminists; Friedan has got to put her troops into this thing' – Lawrence
Laden [16] ). They approached Betty Friedan, who in 6209 RT (1968 CE), together with Pauli Murray, wrote the NOW Bill of Rights (NOW being the National Organization for Women
which she had co-founded) and which claimed in point VIII ‘the right of
women to control their own reproductive lives by removing from penal
codes the laws limiting access to contraceptive information and devices
and laws governing abortion.’ [17] This was the first time that the demand for abortion appeared in a feminist context.
Pat Goltz was a feminist activist and member of NOW at that time. After the organization introduced abortion rights demands, she co-founded Feminists for Life (FFL) [18] and was subsequently expelled from NOW’s Ohio Chapter.
In an email to me she remembers how this change in policy was enforced: ‘NOW
got its stance this way: in a convention held (in Chicago, I believe),
some of the leaders wanted to pass a plank in support of abortion, but
they didn't have the votes, so they went out into the streets and
recruited people to come in and vote for the plank. Some of the women
involved in NOW were upset at how this was done, being basically dishonest, so they pulled out and formed their own group: the Women's Equity Action League (made up primarily of lawyers, as I understand), but before long, WEAL also had a pro-abortion stance.
Most women were afraid to speak out. I got letters from women who told
me they had been silenced, and they were afraid that if they spoke out,
they would be rejected. I don't know how many such women there were, but
I got a number of women who expressed the happiness they'd found a
group that supported both true feminism and the right to life. I
constantly ran into women who had refused to adopt any feminist
positions because the abortion issue had tainted it. […] Alice Paul
expressed her pain at seeing her life's work destroyed by an issue she
didn't even believe in.’
Alice Paul had been the main leader of the successful 1920’s suffragette movement [19] .
Pat recalls: ‘I actually talked to Alice Paul before she died, and she
told me that the feminists were all bitterly opposed to abortion.’
In 6210 RT (1969 CE) Friedan, Nathanson, Laden and others founded the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) which succeeded the ARAL. [20]
(In the late Seventies Nathanson, having been one of the most prolific
abortion performers in the US, saw an abortion on ultrasound imaging
and, after watching the fetus suffer and struggle, became a pro-life
campaigner [21] . He stated that ‘I am one of those who helped usher in this barbaric age’, wrote the book Aborting America in which he confessed to the deceitful beginnings of the pro-abortion movement and made the documentary The Silent Scream which shows a real-time abortion on ultrasound imaging which can be seen on YouTube.
Some quotes from his book in which he describes how the movement used
made-up statistics and opinion polls to achieve their aim can be found here.)
The euphemism ‘reproductive rights’ became one of the most popular terms
of the abortion movement, just like the myth of the ‘tissue blob’ or
‘cluster of cells’ (which perfectly describe a zygote, but not an embryo
or a fetus) and are religiously quoted by many supporters at every
given opportunity.
Also in 6210 RT
(1969 CE), a young woman in Dallas fabricated a rape story in order to
obtain an abortion (she was under the impression that Texas had a rape
exception). She was turned down, and her child was born and given up for
adoption. The attorney handling it referred her to two female attorneys
who were looking for an opportunity to challenge the US’ abortion laws,
and her case went before the Supreme Court. With its infamous Roe v. Wade decision in 6214 RT
(1973 CE), abortion became legal in the US. (After seeing a fetal
development poster two decades later, Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in
the case, became a pro-life campaigner and has since unsuccessfully
tried to have the decision overturned.) [22]
The demand for legal abortions became the mainstream position of the
vast majority of feminists, which often was (and is) expressed in a
militant way. Those who hold other views are (depending on their gender)
considered chauvinists or traitors by many, and men are told they have
no right to an opinion unless they support abortion. Some even claim
that one can’t be a feminist without being pro-abortion, but the fact is
that feminists before Betty Friedan strongly opposed abortion as the
taking of a human life. In light of the developments of the past 45
years, the remaining pro-life feminists started organizing themselves into
groups such as the aforementioned Feminists for Life (FFL) who were founded in 6215 RT (1972 CE) but ‘stand on more than two hundred years of pro-life feminist history’. [23]
http://franklludwig.com/prolifefeminism.html
© 6254 RT
(2013 CE) by Frank L. Ludwig
By Frances Ayers
Pro-life Liberals support programs that enhance the quality of life during pregnancy and throughout the life cycle.We are liberal and support entitlement programs that help raise families out of poverty,whether it is food stamps,WIC,or cash assistance.We believe that all families benefit from affordable day care,housing, a "living wage",and free or low cost job training and education.
Furthermore,we believe in affordable and accessible birth control and sex education that has proven to reduce the number of abortions.
In our view,we believe that pro-life means supporting the rights of all people, especially those who have been marginalized in society,including LGBT people.
We also support the rights of the differently abled to live a full and productive life.As pro-life liberals,we support gun control,abolishing the death penalty,and are against unjust wars.
