In 1973, Ted Kennedy’s views on abortion were decidely different than in 2009.
Notes
posted 8 / 26 / 2009
OWOSSO, Michigan — State police at the Corunna post have confirmed a well-known anti-abortion activist was shot multiple times and killed this morning in front of Owosso High School.
The victim’s identity has not yet been released but the shooting occurred around 7:30 a.m., after most students were off the buses and safely inside the building, said Owosso schools transportation supervisor Jayne Campbell.
State police also confirmed that a suspect was taken into custody about 8:15 a.m. at the suspect’s home.
Something tells me this story will get a little less coverage than the George Tiller one. Both stories are tragic. Both are extraordinarily unhelpful to either side of the argument.
For abortion opponents, cruel ironies abounded in this sibling disagreement. Because of Eunice Shriver’s work with the developmentally disabled, a group of Americans who had once been marginalized and hidden away — or lobotomized, like her sister Rosemary — was ushered closer to full participation in ordinary human life. But because of laws that her brother [Ted Kennedy] unstintingly supported, that same group was ushered out again: the abortion rate for fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome, for instance, is estimated to be as high as 90 percent.— Ross Douthat - A Different Kind of Liberal - NYT
Eunice [Kennedy] belonged to America’s dwindling population of outspoken pro-life liberals. Like her church, she saw a continuity, rather than a contradiction, between championing the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed and protecting unborn human life.— Ross Douthat - A Different Kind of Liberal - NYT
— Thank you, Ross. Thank you very, very much. (via ayjay)It’s worth pondering how the politics of abortion might have been different had Ted shared even some of his sister’s qualms about the practice. One could imagine a world in which America’s leading liberal Catholic had found a way to make liberalism less absolutist on the issue, and a world where a man who became famous for reaching across the aisle had reached across, even occasionally, in search of compromise on the country’s most divisive issue.
That was not to be. And it’s entirely fitting, given his record, that Kennedy’s immediate legacy is a draft of health-care legislation that pursues an eminently Catholic goal — expanding access to medical care — through a system that seems likely, in its present design, to subsidize abortion.
But his sister would have written it a different way.
Reading Catbus’s account of abortion protesterswas pretty discouraging. I sometimes like to pretend that people who disagree—even on an issue as loaded as abortion—can at least communicate. Even if they can’t understand the other’s perspective, perhaps they can at least accept the other side’s good intentions.
Here’s the thing: when the other side is standing in a parking lot, shouting scripture and damnation at me as I attempt to do something as elemental and none-of-their-business as visit the doctor, “good intentions” are a fantasy. Protesters aren’t there to communicate. They’re there to manipulate, intimidate, threaten, and shame women who they don’t even know.
Do you really believe that the person who comes out on a Saturday to stand in front of a clinic and harass women is interested in communicating?
I don’t think he would characterize what he’s doing as “harassing women.” (I don’t know the guy in question—but I’m guessing.) Is he shouting Bible verses because he thinks they’ll shame you or because he thinks they’ll persuade you to do something different? Why is he there? Why does he think you’re there. Why is he so passionate about the matter?
There are probably some people who think it’s great fun to manipulate, indimidate, threaten, and shame people. In my experience, those usually aren’t the retired Catholic guys with the rosaries. You’re right to the extent that he’s doing a bad job of getting his message through.
Would you say the same thing about an anti-war protest?
I only want to address one point: categorizing an abortion as simple as an “elemental trip to the doctor” is evasive and euphemistic language at its best. Nobody protests over buying buying Tylenol or seeing the doctor for migrains. Don’t compare their relative importance to an abortion, pinkindiaink.
Here’s the thing, dude. Any given Saturday, for like 80% of the people going into a repro health clinic, this IS a trip to the doctor, and they’re still getting hassled and screamed at and having experiences like username pinkindiaink’s. The vast, vast majority of people who are visiting my clinic on Saturday are there to pick up a prescription, get a pap smear, get a blood test, visit a gynecologist for some routine shit (PP operates on a sliding scale and is pretty liberal about accepting insurance), or see a counselor. For them, it most certainly IS ‘an elemental trip to the doctor,’ and they’re getting chased down by a guy with fetus pictures all the same.
(Sorry, just saw this….)
Okay. If you were referring to the standard, everyday doctor visits as “elemental” and not euphemising an abortion, than I misunderstood. I’ll agree with you that those people don’t deserve harrassment (although on principle I personally would not knowingly frequent an office that performs abortions)—and of course it’s almost impossible for protesters to determine why someone is there.
Perhaps this is why I’m skeptical about extreme language from either side. Empathy is difficult enough without assuming the worst of others. Graphic posters of dismembered fetuses or baby strollers splashed with fake blood don’t help people understand each other. Neither does calling opponents of abortion “right wing nuts who are in a full-blown panic over the fact that they don’t have a legal right to control and punish women who have unapproved sex lives.” Maybe this sort of thing energizes the base, but it doesn’t build any bridges.— Squashed: Failure to Connect
In 1973, Ted Kennedy’s views on abortion were decidely different than in 2009.
I do not rejoice in Ted Kennedy’s death, but neither can I celebrate a life devoted to the wholesale slaughter of the unborn.
Forcing abortion doctors to warn pregnant women about an increased suicide risk is “untruthful and misleading,” a judge ruled Thursday in striking down portions of South Dakota’s 2005 informed consent law. But some language abortion provider Planned Parenthood assailed as “ideologically charged” and unconstitutional survived the legal challenge: Doctors still must tell women that abortions “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living, human being.”—
Ruling amends pre-abortion text | argusleader.com | Argus Leader
This is great news.
What is this even an argument about? Some edits coming up momentarily.Can i still engage in gambling on fights to the death between fetuses?
What is this an argument about? It illustrates the cognitive disconnect required to be horrified when dogs are abused and killed, yet indifferent to the legality of allowing mothers to kill their own children.
