Friday, July 6, 2012

Bred for Quality

Over the years we have bred animals for their best qualities. We breed cows to give the most or best milk and meat, dogs to look funny at dog shows, horses to win races and pull heavy things. We don't give it a second thought. We don't breed the runts of the litters; we discard them. We breed  for desired characteristics. Just like Mother Nature does in the wild. Survival of the fittest, death to the weak and infirm. Same with plants. Some people still get patents for new roses and orchids. And our food? Practically all corn is "hybrid" nowadays. I suppose seeds in general. Bred for beauty or production or resistance to disease.

Humans? Not so much anymore. We still practice eugenics through abortion, of course, including the desired sex of the child. We abort those we know will be deformed, prone to diseases, feeble mindedness. Abortion is so much more than poor teenaged girls not having to have back alley abortions, isn't it? Abortion has become everything the silly moralists of the 1950s and 1960s warned it would become. Or soon will be.

Abortion is used for ethnic cleansing in our society as well, just like eugenics was used in the 1930s, only much more so. MANY more black children are aborted each year, proportionately, than any other flavor. Mostly by white doctors. Not ethnic cleansing, you say? Not eugenics? Ok.

And yet we are appalled when we read about what happened in the 1920s - 1960s. The alcoholics and feeble-minded and retarded (words of that era) not allowed to have babies, sterilize by court order or sometimes only by the order of the warden of an "asylum" somewhere. It is a sad story, even though I try not to judge people from times other than my own.

I want to tell some of those stories in the coming posts. Do you know any?

19 comments:

  1. Since 1967 the UK has murdered around 6 MILLION children for such reasons.
    Before then around 8 women a year died from back street abortions.
    Do the maths.

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    1. That figure of 8?
      I somehow doubt its veracity. Many women had abortions, and many of those abortions were carried out by people who were hardly expert.
      A significant proportion of them developed life-threatening infections and many suffered uncontrolled bleeding.

      Many of those were then afraid to go for the medical treatment they so desperately needed, because of the fact that abortion was illegal, and they were afraid of being punished.
      When women died of complications resulting from illegal abortions, it was quite common for the official death certificate not to make any mention of the real reason behind the death, to spare the feelings of family and friends.
      "For the twelve years before the Act, abortion was the leading cause of maternal mortality in England and Wales. The first Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths in 1952-54 reported 153 deaths from abortion, which was “procured .. by the woman herself in 58 instances.” The terminal event in 50% of illegal cases was sepsis but in 25% it was air embolus from “the injection under pressure of some fluid, nearly always soapy water, into the cervix or into the vagina.” The Report commented that most of the women were “mothers of families”. After 1968 maternal deaths from illegal abortion fell slowly but did not disappear until 1982. "
      Source: The Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

      "One stark indication of the prevalence of illegal abortion was the death toll. In 1930, abortion was listed as the official cause of death for almost 2,700 women—nearly one-fifth (18%) of maternal deaths recorded in that year. The death toll had declined to just under 1,700 by 1940, and to just over 300 by 1950 (most likely because of the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s, which permitted more effective treatment of the infections that frequently developed after illegal abortion). By 1965, the number of deaths due to illegal abortion had fallen to just under 200, but illegal abortion still accounted for 17% of all deaths attributed to pregnancy and childbirth that year. And these are just the number that were officially reported; the actual number was likely much higher."
      Source: The Guttmacher Report on Public Policy

      It may be easy to describe these women as murderers, but it's clear that the reality is that they had to be desperate to contemplate such a dangerous procedure. It most certainly was not undertaken lightly, and many of those women would be permanently damaged, physically and mentally by their ordeal.

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    2. 6.7 million children have been murdered since 67. Some for the crime of having a hair lip! The pill has been available most of that time, as have condoms etc. The word, NO is also available to use but responsibility is not counted by some. Much easier to kill the child, and you can be taught so in school, how progressive!
      In times past people did have abortions and die bu 2500 women a year is little in comparison to the easy killing we see now. Half at least being female, so much for the sisterhood eh?

      No excuses will do, abortion is murder, nothing less. it is not required, no matter the cause.

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    3. I don't agree with your definition, but I'm not going to argue.

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    4. Adullamite, I also don't agree with your definition and will add it's pointless for either of us to argue because the argument's based on whether a fetus is a human being yet or not.

      People who consider abortion murder say it is from the first cells. I do not agree. I understand why we can never agree on this, but it doesn't change my opinion. Nor will it change yours.

      I do not care for abortion, think it's a great pity, but don't consider it murder unless the child born would be viable. And I would have aborted a child I knew had a serious birth defect. I didn't have to, fortunately. I did miscarry twice and was devastated both times. I'm sure I would have been devastated feeling I needed to abort a fetus as well.

      But I personally consider being born unwanted a worse fate, perhaps because I can't believe in a God who would let an aborted child suffer for the parents' decision. An unwanted child, on the other hand...

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  2. People should stop pontificating about abortion and start addressing the reasons behind it, mainly lack of adequate birth control, but other reasons too.

    "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time." You can't sit back and say it's a bad thing without solving the fundamental problems.

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    1. Our reasoning for allowing abortions was, we thought, compassion. We would do it so as not to wreck the life and destroy the future of young girls and boys who just made one mistake. Silly us, we assumed they would be grateful for this salvation and never allow themselves to "slip up" again. That didn't work, did it? Did we lower the teen pregnancy rate by offering them abortions? Is their self control higher today than ever before? Did they become so grateful that they stopped getting pregnant and ran of to college to get rich?

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    2. I have no idea what your reasons were. I can only speak for myself. I think you're conflating two issues. Teenagers don't get pregnant because they can have abortions.

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    3. The fundamental problem is society cares little for human life. Liberalism has devalued life to such an extent that others death is meaningless. Kill someone in a car and you might get three years!
      It's nonsense to say there is inadequate birth control, the pill is so easily available even to 13 year olds! Condoms fill the shops and the word no is free!
      Sex is , and always has been, shoved in front of us daily, so we follow it. Nobody misses out. A society with lax self control here alongside bad parenting, who are often just as bad, and a society that says 'do what you want.'
      Self control is ignored. Blame others.

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  3. Abortion is the cause of abortion. And abortion doesn't cure any of the reasons it is used. It doesn't teach birth control or self control. We can still teach self responsibility and how to succeed in life even if abortion were to become illegal tomorrow. Abortion is a stumbling block to taking control of one's life, a crutch for not holding oneself accountable for one's actions.

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    1. That's exactly what I said, apart from your last sentence.

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    2. Wow. Spoken like a true man who has never had to face an unwanted pregnancy.

      xxx

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    3. I don't think it's fair to say that, to dismiss my (or any man's) personal life experiences with abortion as if I couldn't possibly have agonized over such a decision. Abortion doesn't only affect the pregnant woman unless it was a miraculous conception. I will be the first to admit that, as a man, my opinions on this subject are pure theory, but that doesn't mean I can't even have an opinion, or have profound life experiences on this subject just because I'm not a woman. We are of the same species and we are all able to offer an analysis of the subject. Florynce Kennedy (one of my few heros) once famously said that if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. I didn't agree with her then and I don't agree with you now. Humans make choices and choices have consequences.

      I don't want to turn a post about eugenics (of which abortion is only a part) into a narrow argument about only abortion, or even about the morality of abortion. Abortion is not moral; it is simply something we do that we don't want to do because we haven't so far been clever enough to accomplish our real goals in a more civilized manner.

      Not everyone agrees with me on this subject. I know that. However, I am convinced I speak the truth and I hope someday abortion will be able to go away. To quote another feminist, Gloria Steinem (NOT one of my heros): "The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off."

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    4. Abortion doesn't only affect the pregnant woman unless it was a miraculous conception.
      Unfortunately not always true, far from it, and that's one of the many problems. Men's choices frequently leave the woman in the lurch.

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    5. In the past, as now, women tend to bear the bulk of the responsibility, even those women who were raped (frequently, she is blamed). Her body takes the toll and the world still expects her to take the bulk of the responsibility.

      Prior to genetic testing, a man could always disavow responsibility; a woman, pushing a seven month belly, can't. It's really not much more simple than that. Nowadays, one can do genetic testing if one has access to all involved and wants to make a big deal of it.

      But, if a man doesn't want to father children, he has several simple expedients. Stealing his seed to force him to father a child is so unlikely as to be non-credible. If he wants a say in whether a woman has a child, he should only copulate unprotected with women he knows want children as well.

      Instead, often a woman is far more likely to be left alone with a potentially shattered future to make the best decision she can. It might affect his future. It will affect hers. (The commitment, in my opinion, is much like the commitment to a breakfast of bacon and eggs by pig and chicken - both contribute, but not equally).

      There are men who are superlative fathers and plenty of women who've had children who were crappy mothers. But I doubt the former are as likely to create children unknowing anyway.

      Unfortunately, the people most likely to create children irresponsibly are the same ones who would be put in charge of raising them. Can you see the problem?

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    6. If it weren't so futile, I would sometime like to have an open debate about Abortion because there are a few points not covered in any of these comments. But it is not good to do that.

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  4. "Abortion is a stumbling block to taking control of one's life, a crutch for not holding oneself accountable for one's actions."

    These are your words that I disagree with. What hubris to declare that choosing an abortion is a 'crutch'! I believe every woman that HAS chosen an abortion has been fully and painfully aware of her actions. AND she suffers the consequences of it for the rest of her life. You are not speaking from life experience, Max. You are speaking from opinion and conjecture. Until you have 'walked the mile etc. etc.' don't spout rhetoric. Sure - opinionate away. You do that quite well. But you will never make me feel compassion for your extrapolated 'profound life experience' unless you've actually lived it.

    xxx

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    1. Actually I disagree with the entire paragraph. Abortion is NOT about teaching birth control. Abortion is NOT about teaching self control. And since when did 'abortion' become fundamental in teaching self responsibility and the ubiquitous 'success in life?'

      Abortion IS about women's legal rights to make decisions about their own reproductive systems, AND about women exercising their right regardless of government policy.

      xxx

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  5. For Clarity: I know you think the Red Dirt Girl and I are a double act, bound together by conspiracy. But I can assure you, there's no collusion here, we've not discussed this subject, so far as I can recall.

    In my own life, I'm glad to be able to say I've never had any part in an abortion, and whilst it SHOULD affect the man as well as the woman, we know that is not true. Men can, and do, walk away from pregnancies. That choice is not available to a woman, let alone a frightened girl. And it's easy to be glib about abstinence, but to suggest that girls get pregnant with the idea that an abortion is an easy fix is unfair.

    I have known people who have had abortions. I have heard their stories and seen their tears. They are not murderers.

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