After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call 'after-birth abortion' (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Nice, huh?

Of course arguments like these are nothing new.

Eugenics is hardly a relic of the past

Eugenics, "the racist pseudoscience determined to wipe away all human beings deemed 'unfit'," has been with us for a very long time.

The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.

Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions … Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning.

Eugenics was born as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age. In 1863, Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, theorized that if talented people only married other talented people, the result would be measurably better offspring. At the turn of the last century, Galton's ideas were imported into the United States just as Gregor Mendel's principles of heredity were rediscovered. American eugenic advocates believed with religious fervor that the same Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man.

Elitists, utopians and so-called "progressives" fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented Galton's eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: populate the earth with vastly more of their own socio-economic and biological kind--and less or none of everyone else.

Only after eugenics became entrenched in the United States was the campaign transplanted into Germany, in no small measure through the efforts of California eugenicists, who published booklets idealizing sterilization and circulated them to German official and scientists.

In 1972, professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado Michael Tooley, argued that a human being "possess[es] a serious right to life only if it possesses the concept of a self as a continuing subject of experiences and other mental states, and believes that it is itself such a continuing entity." Determining infants don't meet these qualifications, Tooley declares there should be "some period of time, such as a week after birth, as the interval during which infanticide will be permitted."

Many other ethicists have argued the same or similar.

Peter Singer's Bold Defense of Infanticide

In 1993, ethicist Peter Singer shocked many Americans by suggesting that no newborn should be considered a person until 30 days after birth and that the attending physician should kill some disabled babies on the spot … In 1979 he wrote, "Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons"; therefore, "the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee."

Instead of upgrading the fetus to the status of a person, however, Peter Singer downgrades the newborn to the status of nonperson because newborns, like fetuses, are incapable "of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time" … In fact, some acts of infanticide are less problematic than killing a happy cat … Singer's logic can be summed up this way: Until a baby is capable of self-awareness, there is no controlling reason not to kill it to serve the preferences of the parents.

As for the doctrine of the "sanctity of human life," it is nothing but "speciesism," an irrational prejudice rooted in outdated religious traditions (e.g., Christianity). Insofar as some human beings are incapable of reasoning, remembering, and self-awareness, they cannot be considered persons. Put simply, dogs, cats, and dolphins are persons, while fetuses, newborns, and some victims of Alzheimer's disease are not.

The Infanticide/Abortion Link - the Dehumanization of Infants

[Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at the august Massachusetts Institute of Technology] argues as follows: Killing a newborn infant should not be penalized as harshly as killing an older child. "To a biologist, birth is as arbitrary a milestone as any other," Pinker says. Pinker says babies aren't real people because they don't have "an ability to reflect upon (themselves) as a continuous locus of consciousness, to form and savor plans for the future, to dread death and to express the choice not to die. And there's the rub: Our immature neonates don't possess these traits any more than mice do."

According to Pinker, "Several moral philosophers have concluded that neonates (infants) are not persons, and thus neonaticide (killing an infant) should not be classified as murder."

Pinker favors a system where "A new mother will first coolly assess the infant and her situation" and then decide whether to keep the baby or kill it.

Eugenics in our time …

A non-person

Like those before them, Giubilini and Minerva argue that "a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a 'person' in the sense of 'subject of a moral right to life'." Got that? Is not a person. But as Matthew Archbold says,

The second we allow ourselves to become the arbiters of who is human and who isn't, this is the calamitous yet inevitable end. Once you say all human life is not sacred, the rest is just drawing random lines in the sand.

Before we consider the ramifications of declaring a newborn baby a "non-person," consider the following words from Judge Andrew Napolitano.

Roe vs. Wade itself does not define the right to an abortion, but it does unambiguously declare that the baby in the womb is not a person, and that the right to privacy protects the mother's decision to kill the baby.

Did you catch that? The Supreme Court declared that the baby in the womb is not a person. When it made that declaration, it rejected dozens of decisions of other courts, in America and in Great Britain, holding that the baby in the womb is a person. This is reminiscent of the Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision in 1857 in which it ruled that blacks were not persons.

If the baby in the womb is a person, then all abortion is unlawful. That's because of the constitutional protection for all persons. The Constitution unambiguously prohibits the government from impairing or permitting others to impair the life, liberty and property of persons without due process.

How scary is this? The Supreme Court declares a class of humanity not to be persons, and then permits people to destroy the members of the class. That's what happened to blacks during slavery; that was the philosophical argument underlying the Holocaust; that's what is happening to babies in the womb today; and that might become the basis for the government killing persons it hates or fears in the future. It will declare them to be non-persons.

How scary is this? It's happening to people today.

Dred Scott Redux: Obama and the Supremes Stand Up for Slavery

After hearing passionate arguments from the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court acquiesced to the president's fervent request and, in a one-line ruling, let stand a lower court decision that declared torture an ordinary, expected consequence of military detention, while introducing a shocking new precedent for all future courts to follow: anyone who is arbitrarily declared a "suspected enemy combatant" by the president or his designated minions is no longer a "person" … They will have no inherent rights, no human rights, no legal standing whatsoever …

This extraordinary ruling occasioned none of those deep-delving "process stories" that glut the pages of the New York Times, where the minutiae of policy-making or political gaming is examined in highly-spun, microscopic detail doled out by self-interested insiders. Obviously, giving government the power to render whole classes of people "unpersons" was not an interesting subject for our media arbiters.

But William Fisher noticed, and gave this report at Antiwar.com:

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal Monday to review a lower court's dismissal of a case brought by four British former Guantanamo prisoners against former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the detainees' lawyers charged Tuesday that the country's highest court evidently believes that "torture and religious humiliation are permissible tools for a government to use."

… Channeling their predecessors in the George W. Bush administration, Obama Justice Department lawyers argued in this case that there is no constitutional right not to be tortured or otherwise abused in a U.S. prison abroad.

The Obama administration had asked the court not to hear the case. By agreeing, the court let stand an earlier opinion by the D.C. Circuit Court, which found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – a statute that applies by its terms to all "persons" – did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo, effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law.

The Constitution is clear: no person can be held without due process; no person can be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. And the U.S. law on torture of any kind is crystal clear: it is forbidden, categorically, even in time of "national emergency." And the instigation of torture is, under U.S. law, a capital crime. No person can be tortured, at any time, for any reason, and there are no immunities whatsoever for torture offered anywhere in the law.

[L]et's be absolutely clear: Barack Obama has taken the freely chosen, public, formal stand -- in court -- that there is nothing wrong with any of these activities. Nothing to answer for, nothing meriting punishment or even civil penalties.

And still further: Barack Obama has now declared, openly, of his own free will, that he does not consider these captives to be "persons." They are, literally, sub-humans. And what makes them sub-humans? The fact that someone in the U.S. government has declared them to be "suspected enemy combatants." (And note: even the mere suspicion of being an "enemy combatant" can strip you of your personhood.)

One co-counsel on the case, Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights, zeroed in on the noxious quintessence of the position taken by the Court, and by our first African-American president: its chilling resemblance to the notorious Dred Scott ruling of 1857, which upheld the principle of slavery. As Fisher notes:

"Another set of claims are dismissed because Guantanamo detainees are not 'persons' within the scope of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – an argument that was too close to Dred Scott v. Sanford for one of the judges on the court of appeals to swallow," he added.

The Dred Scott case was a decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1857. It ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants — whether or not they were slaves — were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States.

And now, once again, 144 years after the Civil War, we have established as the law of the land and the policy of the United States government that whole classes of people can be declared "non-persons" and have their liberty stripped away …

How long before Patriot Act, NDAA, and other repressions of liberty in the name of "defending freedom," will get you or me declared a "non-person?"

What's that you say? I can't happen here?

Defending Freedom via the Abolition Thereof

Any standard US history text will at least mention, in passing, the suppression of American antiwar dissent in World War I. The great conservative sociologist, the late Robert Nisbet, wrote in 1988 that:

"The blunt fact is that when [under Woodrow Wilson] America was introduced to the War State in 1917, it was introduced also to what would later be known as the total, or totalitarian, state."

A bit harsh, what? American historians really hate coming to grips with what happened in America, starting in April 1917. They so fail because a fair reading would entail some responsibility for St. Woodrow, who oversaw the whole sorry show.

All free communication came to an end. People were arrested and indicted for casual remarks made in private conversation. It was not the New Left of the 1960s that actually invented the claim that the personal is the political – it was the United States government.

A great wave of repression came down on "the freest people in the world," as Americans liked to call themselves. Government gumshoes, federal, state, and local, delighted in following up idle charges of "disloyalty," "treason," "pro-Germanism," and "slacking." Legislatures outlawed the teaching of the German language and the public performance of music by such dangerous Teutons as Beethoven. Wilson and the administration – in charge of the enlarged federal apparatus of repression – encouraged, aided, and abetted local efforts, including those of self-appointed, hyperthyroid "patriotic" snoops and bullies. Tarring and feathering came back in style for those accused of the "crimes" mentioned above. Here and there, a local Barney Fife, or an Army officer who hadn’t quite made it over to Northern France, would shoot a "traitor" for saying the wrong thing in a public place. The hero would then be tried for it, acquitted, and finally, lionized in the moronic press.

Not fully satisfied with their good works so far, many hotheads and morons in positions of public authority demanded redoubled efforts to ferret out "traitors" and "slackers." They called for military courts to try domestic dissenters. Firing squads, they said, should be kept busy, full time. I am leaving out the names of these authentically American Robespierres to spare the feelings of their descendants, who might perhaps agree that these fellows were vicious idiots.

When not satisfied with forcing supposed "traitors" to kiss the flag or sing the praises of the Archangel Woodrow, mobs of patriotic fellows would occasionally hang someone. Meanwhile, Congress, deliberating again, strengthened the Espionage Act to criminalize whatever microscopic bit of free discussion might accidentally still remain. Congress even considered outlawing all discussion of the origins of the war or how America entered, which would have effectively ended all work by historians. Fortunately, however, many of the historians were otherwise employed – in producing propaganda for the cause. For a good discussion of these matters, see H. C. Peterson and Gilbert C. Fite, Opponents of War, 1917-1918 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1957).

Yes, it already has.

What about ObamaCare?

Latest infanticide push about more than killing babies

Now consider just one practical example of how personhood theory could soon deleteriously impact the well-being of you and your family. Obamacare has centralized control of health care into the federal bureaucracy, including by establishing a plethora of cost/benefit boards that will start operating within the next several years. Who do you think will be tapped to fill many of these powerful government positions that could ultimately decide what medical procedures will and won't be covered by insurance — perhaps even which patients will and won't receive them? Bingo! "Experts" trained in bioethics.

Now consider what could happen if many or most of these board members adhere to the noxious view that "human non-persons" do not have a right to life: To say the least, the potential for "death panels" comes vividly into focus.

Now that we've reduced the sanctity of life to merely drawing lines in the sand, those with the biggest guns, will ultimately decide who lives or dies.

"There is a simple solution to people problems. Kill the person."

The Ultimate Government Solution.

Related to "After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?":

• Eugenics: Progressivism's Ultimate Social Engineering
• Socialism, Fascism, Racism, Eugenics and Militarism
• Killing Baby "Non Persons"–Just Grist for Bioethics Mill
• Orwellian Newspeak and Postnatal or After-Birth "abortion"
• Do Catholics Have Too Many Babies?
• Planned Parenthood
• Sex-selective Abortions and the Anti-choice People Who Oppose Them
• Measuring the Immeasurable
• War Against The Weak
• Obama's bad moves on infanticide come back to haunt him
• New Bill Known As Enemy Expatriation Act Would Allow Government To Strip Citizenship Without Conviction

After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

Watch this terrific 33-minute documentary in which Ray Comfort asks people some very difficult questions.

The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but not human. They cannot be human in the sense of being an image of God ... -- Adolph Hitler

H/T - Would you do it?

P.S. - Bloggers! Post this video and make it go viral!

Difficult Questions is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

Speaking of friends, Ted Lacksonen decided to jump into the abortion debate a couple days ago, and made what I thought was a good case for why a woman has an inalienable right to an abortion. What I found most interesting is that, he neither denies the humanity of the fetus, nor insists that the natural (inalienable) right to life rests on religious dogma. Instead, he frames the abortion debate as a clash between rights: "The right to life of the unborn fetus, and the right to physical autonomy of the pregnant woman."

I agree with Ted that the abortion debate is about a clash of rights. I also agree that both camps - "pro-choice" and "pro-life" - give little weight (if any) to each others genuine concerns. But I disagree with him that "a woman has an inalienable right to an abortion." Now, let's see if I can make my case as amiable as Ted made his.

Please read Ted's case first: What is the Abortion Debate About, Really?

When does life begin?

I'd like to start where we both agree - a fetus is a human being.

Let me make it simple: life begins at conception, and there is no serious debate about that point. All this “heartbeat,” “survival outside the womb,” and “blob of tissue” nonsense is just what I called it, nonsense.

The dispute over "when life begins" is really an argument over the question: "When does that fetus become a person endowed with the same natural rights as a developed human being?" But this is a philosophical and/or dare I say, religious issue. After all, science cannot prove the personhood of anyone. So, the question we should be asking is: "At what point does an individual physical human being come into existence?"

Science can and does answer this question. In brief: You were a human zygote, a human embryo, a human fetus, a human infant, a human child, and you're now a human adult. You are, and always have been, a human. A unique human at that. At no point, from conception to adulthood, were you anything other than a human being.

Killing another human being is the ultimate form of aggression. Especially a small, helpless fetus that is guilty of nothing more than waking up suddenly in a woman's womb. Since the use of lethal force is justified at times, let's stop pretending abortion is anything other than what it is, and deal with it accordingly.

As Camille Paglia says, "[T]he pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand ... I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue."

Abortion

While eager to point out that the Constitution protects the right to life—which it does—abortion foes give little weight to the right to the inalienable right to control one’s physical being, which I call the right to physical autonomy; the right to do what you wish with your body without interference from the government or any other person.

So yes, you heard me say it: A woman has an inalienable right to an abortion. (She also has an inalienable right to chop off her left hand, and both are manifestations of physical autonomy.) Imagine that our old friends Steve and Susie Citizen became stranded on an island. Susie has an inalienable right to her physical autonomy, and thus, can resist his amorous affections. If she succumbs and becomes pregnant, she has an inalienable right to resist his efforts to force her to carry it to term. The question is whether a state should protect the unborn fetus’s right to life at the expense of the pregnant woman’s right to physical autonomy.

Let's say our friend Susie decided to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Having enjoyed smooth seas and solitude for days, she's startled when she hears loud noise behind her. When Susie turns around to investigate the noise, she finds a wet and disheveled man climbing onto her boat.

"My ship sank," he says, "I've been clinging to the mast for days. I'm so grateful you came along. I had almost given up."

In shock, Susie stares at him for a moment, then walks across the deck and shoves him back into the ocean. "He was a trespasser who infringed on my property and solitude," she consoles herself, "and the idea that I’m somehow compelled to accommodate him is ridiculous. What am I, his slave?"

In most people's view, Susie's justification is pathetic and she's guilty of murder. Even if we agree that indeed, the man was trespassing on Susie's boat. His death sentence remains unjust.

If Susie can't throw the man overboard, does this put her at his mercy?

No, she is not at his mercy. Susie doesn't have to go anywhere she wasn't already going before, and she isn't compelled to keep him aboard one second longer than necessary to bring him to safety either. Once she reaches a populated land, he's off the boat and her responsibility for him ends.

Let's take a look at abortion in light of this analogy. A woman may not have intended to carry the "passenger" she's confronted with, and may even find his presence inconvenient and annoying. However, it's certainly not the "passenger's" fault he finds himself there, and he has committed no wrongful act against her either. Therefore, deliberately killing the "passenger" is an unjust act of extreme aggression. In other words, abortion is murder.

Individual Sovereignty

Maybe you found that analogy rather unconvincing. Because as a sovereign individual, a woman's body is her own to do with as she pleases. A woman even has the "right to chop off her left hand" if she so desires. Her body is her own. Not only do I completely agree, but I suspect most readers of this blog accept the primacy of individual sovereignty too. But to cede to a woman the power of life and death over another life just because it's inside her body, limits the right of sovereignty to some but not all.

If individual sovereignty is to mean anything, then all individuals must be sovereign. And for an individual to be sovereign over herself at any point in life, she must be recognized as sovereign at all points in her life. So, just because a new life currently resides inside the woman's body, does not make it part of her body. Therefore, an abortion is not the same as chopping off one's hand. Abortion is the killing of another individual.

Furthermore, to say that just because this life happens to be inside a woman's body gives her sovereignty over it is to say that possessing the power of life and death gives her the right to exercise that power. At it's root, this is might makes right. Or as Camille Paglia bluntly says, "the extermination of the powerless by the powerful." If we allow this line of reasoning to be used, individual sovereignty is rendered meaningless altogether.

A Woman's Right to Choose

A woman cannot simply "choose," she must choose to do something. And in the abortion debate, her "choice" is whether or not to kill another human. As we discussed earlier, from conception right up through today, you have always been a human being. After all, humans to not give birth to cats, dogs, or lemurs. To say that women have the "right to choose" then, implies once again, that might makes right, so therefore they can kill another human for any reason they choose.

Summary

I realize this post creates more questions than it provides answers. I know there are "holes" in my arguments too. Abortion is a complicated (and touchy) subject that requires much more thought than I can offer in a single blog post. My goal here was simply to demonstrate that the abortion question isn't as simple as this:

Should a state, and to what extent, intrude on a woman’s inalienable right to physical autonomy and use its police powers to effectively occupy her womb and force her to carry a pregnancy to term in order to protect the inalienable right to life of the unborn living child who is defenseless to prevent an act of homicide.

Personally, I am against abortion. Not only do I believe the right to life is inherent in every human being, but that life is the very pith of all our rights. For without life, no other rights matter. Meaning life must be protected jealously.

As I said earlier, killing another human being is the ultimate form of aggression. Especially a small, helpless fetus that is guilty of nothing more than waking up suddenly in a woman's womb. It had no control over being there, but it's mother certainly did. Getting pregnant doesn't exactly happen by accident.

If an unborn child (the most helpless of us all) is not sovereign and entitled to protection of life, then to be consistent, no one is entitled to protection of life. It's the powerful vs. the powerless. Might makes right.

Self-Ownership and the Right to Life is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

Evangelical Christian leader James Dobson withdrew his support of Kentucky Senate candidate Trey Grayson (the Republican Establishment favorite) today, throwing his support behind Rand Paul instead.

Why? "Senior members of the GOP" lied.

Dobson: GOP misled me on Paul

Christian conservative leader James Dobson withdrew his endorsement of Kentucky Senate candidate Trey Grayson Monday, switching his support to Rand Paul’s campaign and accusing “senior members of the GOP” of misleading him about Paul’s record on abortion.

“I was given misleading information about the candidacy of Dr. Rand Paul, who is running in the Republican Primary for the U.S. Senate. Senior members of the GOP told me Dr. Paul is pro-choice and that he opposes many conservative perspectives, so I endorsed his opponent,” Dobson explained. “But now I've received further information from OB/GYNs in Kentucky whom I trust, and from interviewing the candidate himself.”

Dobson’s reversal is an embarrassment for Grayson’s campaign, which touted the religious leader’s support last week ... Grayson, who serves as Kentucky’s secretary of state, has struggled in the polls against Paul, an ophthalmologist, with the primary just weeks away.

Now, Paul's campaign is featuring Dobson's support in a wave of radio ads across the state, on news and Christian radio stations.

We could just brush this lie about Rand Paul's record on abortion off, noting the Establishment's despair over their power slipping away. Not that that's a legitimate excuse, mind you, just a reason.

The problem is that they haven't a pro-life leg to stand on.

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood, one of the world's biggest abortion providers, received government grants and contracts of $350 million for fiscal year 2007-2008 and $337 million for fiscal year 2006-2007. According to their website, Planned Parenthood's fiscal year ends on June 30. In other words, Planned Parenthood received $687 million during the last 2 years of George W. Bush's presidency alone.

Well, you say ... It's Congress who holds the purse strings, and those Democrats were in control!

Okay, let's go back another year. During fiscal year 2005-2006, Planned Parenthood received government grants and contracts of $305 million - with a Republican-controlled Congress to boot!

By the way, abortion clinics affiliated with Planned Parenthood performed 264,943 abortions in 2005.

Here Comes the Judge

Republican President Richard Nixon appointed Harry Blackmun to the Supreme Court in 1970. Then, in 1973, Blackmun wrote the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, nullifying all state abortion laws and clearing a path for the unfettered slaughter of tens of millions of babies.

Republican President Gerald Ford appointed Justice John Paul Stevens in 1975. Finally retiring from the bench after 35 years, Stevens will go down in history as one of the most left-wing justices to ever sit on the Supreme Court.

Republican President Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981, and then Anthony Kennedy in 1988. Both of whom voted to strike down state restrictions on abortion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). Both also upheld the McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act restricting free speech, and have gone on record favoring international law to interpret our Constitution.

Then there's Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008), an appeal by Patrick Kennedy who was convicted and sentenced to death for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter, causing severe injuries that required emergency surgery. Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion that overturned his death penalty, citing "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."

Republican President George H.W. Bush appointed David Souter in 1990, who went on to vote against abortion restrictions, against private property, and in favor of gun regulation. By the time he retired, "Justice Souter was lauded by the left."

Republican President George W. Bush appointed Samuel Alito in 2005, who said he would approach abortion with an "an open mind." Justice John Roberts, appointed by Bush in 2006, said during his confirmation hearings that Roe v. Wade was "settled as a precedent of the court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis [Latin for 'stand by a decision']."

Not to mention they both voted against the right of habeas corpus in Boumediene v. Bush (2008).

Poor Republican Record on Abortion

Even the last Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, said that “certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe vs. Wade." I don't know ... but it's starting to look more like it's the Republican Party Establishment, who thinks that Christian conservatives are "largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command."

UPDATE:

• Republican Party liars

GOP’s Abortion Record is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog

Why no abortions on MTV’s 16 and Pregnant?

MTV’s hit show 16 and Pregnant is about to air its second season, with a whole new round of pregnant teenage girls. And while I have mixed feelings about the show in general (does it glamorize teen pregnancy or shine a light on what is a huge problem in America?), there is one thing that irks me to no end. Where are the pregnant teens who choose not to stay pregnant? Where are the abortions?

I realize that it’s controversial to document a teenager who decides to end their pregnancy, but the fact is that nearly a third of all teen pregnancies end in abortion. But if you were to watch MTV, you’d never know that – you’d think all young women choose to go through with the pregnancy.

If MTV really wanted to prove themselves as responsible programmers, they would also feature pregnant teens who have abortions.

You know ... Jessica may have a point ... But something tells me she wouldn't actually want MTV to air the truth. Besides, I'm not sure the ratings-zealots would allow them to air the truth about abortion on regular cable TV in the first place.

After all, the truth is worse than the most violent of horror movies!

I wonder if Jessica would approve of MTV airing an accurate documentary on the history of Planned Parenthood?

One can only wonder ...

H/T - The Daley Gator!

Where are the Abortions? is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog