There's no doubt that Walsh behaved in a more mannerly fashion than did O'Reilly in last night's set-to on Fox. O'Reilly is a bully, and last night's performance did nothing to contradict that characterization. To make matters worse, he was unfair in rehashing the contest with Glenn Beck after Walsh had left the scene. So much for form.
O'Reilly let the interview play in full even though Walsh had her fears about that. Of course O'Reilly edited nothing. Why should he have? Both sides expressed their points of view. At the end, it was a bit like a sandbox brawl with both claiming that the other had bloody hands.
On this question, I believe only Walsh does, by sanctioning late-term abortions regardless of the legitimacy of the reasons therefor. Walsh is clearly in the corner of the OS turd maker (I believe her screen name is something to do with priddy) who supports a mother's right to deal with this “thing” in her belly as some sort of poorly digested meal until the point where the meal can be observed ex-utero. The good doctor Tiller was of a similar mind.
Interestingly, no one on OS, certainly not Walsh, has mentioned the impressive support O'Reilly received from the Johns Hopkins retiree who stated in no uncertain terms that upon reviewing the official records of Dr. Tiller's practice, it was clear to him that Tiller was not loathe to perform at a high price late-term abortions for superficial reasons. To borrow a phrase from liberals, even one is one too many.
Some “doctor” on another OS thread claims that pregnancy shouldn't be a nine-month jail sentence. This reminds me of Obama’s inhuman remark on the campaign trail to the effect that a teenager shouldn’t be “punished” with a baby. This of course completely misses the point of the problem with late-term abortions. A woman who has allowed herself to become pregnant, toyed with the situation for months, should not, absent compelling circumstances, which do not include inhibiting the mother's social calendar, be entitled to a procedure which treats a developed and emerging life as the victim of an errant enema.
Interestingly, no one on OS, certainly not Walsh, has mentioned the impressive support O'Reilly received from the Johns Hopkins retiree who stated in no uncertain terms that upon reviewing the official records of Dr. Tiller's practice, it was clear to him that Tiller was not loathe to perform at a high price late-term abortions for superficial reasons. To borrow a phrase from liberals, even one is one too many.
Some “doctor” on another OS thread claims that pregnancy shouldn't be a nine-month jail sentence. This reminds me of Obama’s inhuman remark on the campaign trail to the effect that a teenager shouldn’t be “punished” with a baby. This of course completely misses the point of the problem with late-term abortions. A woman who has allowed herself to become pregnant, toyed with the situation for months, should not, absent compelling circumstances, which do not include inhibiting the mother's social calendar, be entitled to a procedure which treats a developed and emerging life as the victim of an errant enema.
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The ancients strike us as cruel for things like Spartan exposure, which Christianity softened, and it seems like we are reverting to a high tech barbarism, which you can see on the ultimate fighting contest, which I will confess part of me likes, although not the good one, and popular culture in general, which increasingly appeals to the basest experessions of our instincts.
Concerning the matter of the so-called "independent" assessment of Dr. Tiller's cases by Dr. McHugh of Johns Hopkins: this is logical fallousy called "appeal to authority". In this case, there is no reason to believe the assessment was independent and every reason to believe it wasn't, as it was commissioned by a prosecutor who was looking for an excuse to bring Dr. Tiller up on charges. There is also the matter of the credentials. Whether Dr. McHugh is from Johns Hopkins or the Medical School of Mexico doesn't really bear on the truth value of the assessment, even though O'Reilly kept shouting Johns Hopkins as if he were touching the Blarney Stone. In any event, McHugh is a Psychiatrist, which does not necessarily qualify him to make any sort of qualified judgment in the matter and actually raises more questions than it answers. What are his politics, for example? Does Dr. McHugh support abortions, except during the third trimester? Or is he an abortion opponent? The whole thing sounds fishy to me, especially inasmuch as his report was paid for by a prosecutor, someone who was not looking for dispassionate, disinterested analysis but was in fact fishing for something else entirely.
Scenario 1) A pregnant woman with three kids finds out that she has a very treatable tumor on her spinal cord. If she delays treatment until her baby is born she risks becoming a paraplegic or dying, leaving her children without a mom. Since the chemo can severly damage and in some cases kill the fetus, this woman has a very tough CHOICE to make. If she chooses abortion, I support that choice.
Scenario 2) An eight month pregnant woman has met a new boyfriend, who doesn't like kids. Her only shot with this great new guy is to terminate her pregnancy. She believes that if she gave the baby up for adoption, and the kid became a pop star, she wouldn't get any of the money. So she plunks down 5K for an abortion. No. Too late. Abortion denied.
Dr. Tiller performed legal abortions in a state where the law required that ALL late term abortions had to be signed off by another, uninvolved doctor. Tiller was charged and acquitted twice for violating this law.
So I don't think that scenario 2 happens often and I agree that it should never happen. However doctors should not be demonized for their involvement in scenario 1.
What a bunch of fools.
In any event, I would remind you that simply reacting with dismissive, smug condescension is not the same thing as making an argument. If you have evidence or reason to support your point of view, then present it.
And don't call me Jesus.
That O'Reilly is an interrupting bully is a given. That's the "form" part. Walsh had ample opportunity to talk, however, and at the top of the interview was given lots of time to dig her hole.
Nasty little dig at Mexico, RB. Be careful. Your fellow libs get really upset about this kind of thing.
Of course the real doctor from Johns Hopkins is a psychiatrist. That's because Tiller couldn't for the most part justify his practice because of physical danger to mother or child; therefore he relied upon the alternate statutory standard of likely mental damage. Who is supposed to judge that? A orthodonist?
What both Walsh and RB don't get is that the issue doesn't end with the question of legality, especially when dealing with matters of life and death. I suppose that a five or six thousand fee is sufficiently splittable to get other doctors with similar views of "abortion as enema" to sign on.
O'Reilly wasn't talking about legality, but morality--an area from which Walsh and Banks can't comfortably hide.
And while we're getting all evidentiary, I have yet to see any evidence that Tiller ever refused a fee. Was it just a coincidence that every one of the thousands of late term abortions he performed were done to protect the physical or mental health of the mother or child? I know liberals can be incredibly naive when it suits their purposes, but this one is really a stretch.
But thanks, RB for "fallousy." That's rich. The first name one.
On the other hand, there's plenty of evidence in nearly every article written about the doctor since his death, and nearly every interview given to those who knew him, that he often waved his fees, limited his fees and in some situations even paid the travel expenses of his patients.
The greed angle is just empty. Whatever one thinks about Tiller, he clearly wasn't in it for the money. Plenty of doctors, hell, just about any specialist, can make the kind of money he made, and most without nearly the kinds of special overhead he had. Even not considering the actual physical dangers that made them necessary, the cost of bullet-proof cars, vests, security, firebombings, shootings, etc. are astronomical, and more than cut into any imaginable bottom-line. Tiller was a surgeon before (by all accounts reluctantly) taking over his father's practice after his death, and had he gone down the road he most likely could have, could have been charing tens of thousands of dollars per operation without getting shot and bombed at all.
From what little I can tell, Tiller was a man with strong and nuanced beliefs much like those you seem to have, Gordon. You clearly don't agree with them, and that's fine. I'm glad to think you wouldn't shoot the man, even if you would instead spend a curious amount of time and energy reviling him posthumously.
Clearly the only reason you have such a burning interest is because of this O'Reilly fellow. Yeah, he's a bully, but who cares about that? The bigger point is that he represents not a single canon of ethical journalism. He's not a muck-raker in some sort of Nelly Bly, Upton Sinclair kind of mode, he's just a jackass after money, egotism and ratings.
There is no reason any kind of intellectual, as I believe you fancy yourself, would take him seriously. Ever. There are plenty of fine thinkers who rest somewhere in the yard on your side of the fence, O'Reilly is but an arrogant and opportunistic scald. I'd advise you to trade up.
This is a very important distinction that leads to a critical question: is it possible for a woman to have an abortion for immoral reasons?
One might think that the answer would be an obvious affirmative. But in many discussions of abortion on OS I have heard many people express the contrary opinion. This is often expressed as "we cannot judge . . . ," or "no man can judge," or "only the woman herself can determine the morality," and so on.
The thinking seems to be that in addition to having a right to an abortion, a woman has immunity from any kind of criticism for that decision. It's seen as bad form to criticize that decision regardless of the reason the woman might have for getting an abortion.
As I said in a comment on another post, I can't think of any other morally significant decision in which the morality of the decision is seen as completely determined by the person making the decision. In other contexts we would actually call that a "conflict of interest." But we have culture of radical individualism in which, with respect to abortion, a special exception is carved out.
I think the problem for the pro-choice side is this: to affirm that a woman can make an immoral decision to get an abortion opens up a whole Pandora's box of issues. If some abortions are immoral, then anti-abortion protests might actually be understandable, perhaps even reasonable. If some abortions are immoral, then perhaps the sexual activity that led to the abortion may be seen as irresponsible or even immoral. If some abortions are immoral, that kind of takes the shine off of the ideal of absolute sexual freedom.
And that suggests that perhaps sex isn't just another kind of recreation, but something much more profound, more about the mystery of life than about individual freedom and rights.
In that regard I am reminded of quotation from Albert Schweitzer on his concept of "reverence for life":
He [the truly ethical man] breaks no leaf from the tree, plucks no flower, is careful to crush no insect with his feet. When he works by his lamp in the summer evening, he prefers to keep his window shut and to breathe the stifling air rather than to see insect after insect falling on his table with singed wings. If after a rain he is walking on the road and sees an earthworm gone astray, he remembers it will dry up in the sun if it does not get back in time to the earth into which it can burrow, and helps it from the fatal stones into the grass. If he comes upon an insect fallen into a puddle, he takes time to save it by extending a leaf or a stalk to it. He is not afraid of being laughed at as sentimental. It is the fate of every truth to be ridiculed before it is recognized. It was once considered stupid to think colored men were really human and must be treated humanely. The time is coming when people will be amazed that it took so long for mankind to recognize that thoughtless injury to life is incompatible with ethics.
If ethical people have so much concern for animal life, how much more concern should we have for human life, even in its earliest stages of development.
You're perfectly free to be judgmental and criticize all you like. Other people are free to express their opinion that you are being judgmental. What do you want? Immunity from criticism for your own opinions? Some sort of public shaming for abortions that you deem "immoral?" Doesn't that already happen when they go to a clinic? Do you want to bring back the stocks?
And yes, late terms abortions suck. They are rare. And they are already legislated as much as they can be, IMHO, without infringing on the rights of the woman involved to her own life and health. Or do you not think she has those? Do you really think that Dr. Tiller would have been acquitted in Kansas if he had been abusing the mental health exception to just do late-term abortions willy-nilly?
And BTW, the "punished with a baby" remark had to do with contraception, not abortion. And yes, a baby is a "punishment" when you are still in high school. If teen pregnancy were some sort of joyous occasion, we would celebrating it, not trying to prevent it.
Arguing morality is nearly impossible. I'm a pro-choice, yet I don't find all abortions moral. Gordon, although he effused greatly to have someone fanning his half of the fire, is also pro-choice in most situations by his own admission.
But the law--and that IS the debate--is a cudgel, not a scalpel. It is incredibly difficult to draw such fine distinctions legally, and Ali is right: great pains have been taken to do so as best we can. It's probably not perfect, and perhaps Tiller wandered into that area--I'd say the solid evidence says he didn't, but it is not at all conclusive.
Now, on the other hand, the comments--hell, the fucking movement--to find O'Reilly culpable in the murder of Dr. Tiller is atrocious. O'Reilly is a stooge and a dickhead and should be listened to by no one. I dislike the hell out of him and don't care about him simultaneously. Because he's useless and valueless as a thinker, yet has this strange amount of influence.
Still, if you believe he is in anyway responsible--let alone legally responsible--for this terrible crime... well, fuck you if you believe that. This is America and people can say whatever the hell they want to. Want to charge him with slander? Fine. There are probably many instances in which he's committed that. But this whole urge to criminalize "hate speech" is an urge to criminalize "free speech" and that is something for which I will not stand. The lefties who are so intent on free speech in theory, yet who refuse to defend it under what they consider objectionable circumstances, let alone those who are for free speech until they see its restriction as a weapon against an enemy, make me sick.
I'm happy to think that if O'Reilly were to somehow on a one in a gazillion shot be brought up on charges for this, the ACLU--an organization O'Reilly derides quite constantly--would be there to defend him and make sure the prosecutors were both laughed and shamed out of court.
If you can understand how abortion laws must be drawn approximately in order to respect the liberties of women, you'd damn well better understand that speech must be protected no matter what you think about it. And vice-versa.
Gordon is willing to praise someone who is pro-life when it fits his argument, even though he doesn't hold that view himself. People fighting here with him, and people posting all over this site, rightly praise the first amendment, yet want to make a man's words a lethal weapon. I don't care what O'Reilly or other conservatives claim about the effect media can have on people. If O'Reilly believes that he might should feel a crisis of conscience about what he says. But in my world, and in our country, you don't need a soapbox to say whatever you want, and being on one doesn't mean you have to stop.
Show some fucking principles.
Making moral judgments does not mean that the person is "judgmental" in a negative way. We make moral judgments all the time, and being able to talk about the morality of actions is one way that we are able to develop public values.
Imagine if someone said "torture is wrong," and someone else replied "you're being judgmental," or "only the torturer can decide if it's wrong." We would be quite surprised by such responses.
But that's exactly the response one often gets about abortion on Open Salon and in other similar venues. It's an attempt to create an exception for abortion, to make it completely a private matter and place it in a "judgment-free" zone.
Some of that no doubt is intended to spare the women getting an abortion further suffering, and that can be an admirable motivation. But if someone makes an immoral decision to have an abortion, then it's appropriate to feel badly about that. Part of being a better person is learning from bad decisions, and talking honestly about the morality of these decisions is one way of doing that.
...if a pregnant woman wants to end the pregnancy which is occurring in her own body…she should be able to do so with absolutely no interference from anyone else.
It is her body!
Early term…mid-term…late term…IT IS HER BODY. If she no longer wants the pregnancy to be occurring in her body…she should be able to terminate it with no interference from anyone else.
She should have access to as safe a procedure as possible...and she should not have to worry about being arrested as a result of acting on the decision.
That is the way it is…and that is the way it is going to continue to be.
As for all this “morality” nonsense…take it up with your gods.
You're much too kind and delicate. Anyone who says, "you're being judgmental" is just plain stupid. Being judgmental is being alive and thinking.
I wish I could also say this more delicately, but the "it's her body" nonsense begs the question whether a woman in the later stages of pregnancy is indeed alone. with "her body." Unless she has a way of kicking herself from within, I suspect the smarter, more intelligent answer is, "no."
YOU WROTE:
“I wish I could also say this more delicately, but the "it's her body" nonsense begs the question whether a woman in the later stages of pregnancy is indeed alone.”
RESPONSE: Whether alone…or not alone…IT IS HER BODY! The pregnancy is occurring IN HER BODY.
Yes, there is an embryo or a zygote or a fetus involved…otherwise there would be no pregnancy…but it is HER BODY.
No one is denying that a pregnant woman is hosting an embryo or a zygote or a fetus.
But those of us who want a woman to have control over her body…are saying that IT IS HER BODY…and if she decides to terminate a pregnancy occurring in her own body…she should be able to do so without interference.
YOU WROTE: Unless she has a way of kicking herself from within, I suspect the smarter, more intelligent answer is, "no."”
RESPONSE: Okay…so now we acknowledge that a pregnant woman has an embryo or a zygote or a fetus inside her body. The operative phrase is “inside HER BODY.” It is her body…and those of us who feel she should have control over her body want her to be able to terminate a pregnancy occurring inside her body without interference.
I'm not talking about interfering. I'm talking about the morality of the decision. It's a morally significant decision because it's not just her body. There is a developing person inside of her body. As you know, if a pregnant woman gets drunk, shoots heroin, and smokes crack we don't just shrug our shoulders and say "oh well, it doesn't matter, it's just her body she's harming." If what she ingests during pregnancy is of moral concern, then certainly the decision to kill the developing person is of moral concern.
Frank: "As for all this “morality” nonsense…take it up with your gods."
Since when is morality nonsense or the property of The Gods. We (well, most of us anyway) have many moral concerns. Why should abortion be exempt from that?
i'm so glad you brought this up:
"As you know, if a pregnant woman gets drunk, shoots heroin, and smokes crack we don't just shrug our shoulders and say "oh well, it doesn't matter, it's just her body she's harming." If what she ingests during pregnancy is of moral concern, then certainly the decision to kill the developing person is of moral concern."
this is exactly the point i was trying to make in the video i posted. the law doesn't just run on moral concern, and we should think hard about what legal mechanisms we're willing to tolerate to address these questions.
that's why it bothers me so much to see the conversation devolve to the point where it addresses no real examples. if we only talk about pregnancy from a mythologized point of view (either "life is precious!" or "it's a parasite!")... then we're bound to enact solutions that are unfairly tilted toward an ideal instead of reality. that is not fair to the individuals who get hung up in the machinery of our medical and legal industries.
YOU WROTE:
I'm not talking about interfering. I'm talking about the morality of the decision. It's a morally significant decision because it's not just her body. There is a developing person inside of her body.
RESPONSE:
There is that…and of course, I mentioned that there is an embryo, zygote, or fetus in every pregnant woman. I think we all recognize that fact.
What you are saying…and what I am disagreeing with…is that because of that fact, you want the woman to lose control over her body. You want her no longer to be able to make a decision to terminate a pregnancy occurring in her own body.
I’m saying: So what that there is the embryo, zygote, or fetus!
If she wants to terminate the pregnancy…it is my opinion that she should be able to do so.
I understand and fully respect your right to disagree, Mishima…and I am committed to fighting the notion you are fighting for.
There is one other thing that really needs to be discussed here.
If a pregnant woman chose to give up smoking and drinking alcohol during her pregnancy…we certainly could discuss the “morality” of that decision…and we certainly could call it a “morally significant decision” just as you called the option to abort a “morally significant decision.”
I doubt you would be opposing that decision, though…because you would see it as being of great benefit to the embryo, zygote, or fetus.
Suppose being aborted was of even greater benefit to the embryo, zygote, or fetus??? Would that be something you could consider when discussing the “it is okay” versus “it is wrong” aspect of abortion?
A huge percentage of proponents of the so-called pro-life movement in America are Christians…motivated by religious considerations.
But…if the Christian religion is correct about the nature of Reality…how can anyone consider abortion to be something bad happening to an embryo, zygote, or fetus?
It is a free ticket into Heaven—if the Christian religion is correct about the nature of Reality.
For sure the embryo, zygote, or fetus, if aborted, will miss out on a few years here in this vale of tears world of ours…possibly committing great sins and being condemned to an eternity in Hell. Instead, the soul of the aborted embryo, zygote, or fetus gets to go to Heaven on a free pass and spend all the rest of eternity with the Christian god.
Not the worst of all worlds…BY ANY MEANS. Something, in fact, to be envied.
If Hitler is in Hell beginning an eternal stint being tortured as one of the condemned…wouldn’t it have been better for his eternal soul to have been aborted?
No, what I want is for the woman to reflect on the morality of abortion, weighing her reason(s) for abortion against the fact that it would involve the destruction of the developing person inside her. I can't make the decision for her, but I can propose that she think about it, and hope that she understands that it is a morally significant decision, nothing like having a wart removed.
Frank: "Suppose being aborted was of even greater benefit to the embryo, zygote, or fetus??? Would that be something you could consider when discussing the “it is okay” versus “it is wrong” aspect of abortion?"
Of course. There are all sorts of medical reasons why an abortion is appropriate, even necessary. I believe these constitute around seven percent of abortions in the U.S.
Frank: "A huge percentage of proponents of the so-called pro-life movement in America are Christians…motivated by religious considerations."
I'm not a Christian, but I think that the Christian tradition contains a great deal of wisdom that is often much too easily dismissed, especially here on Open Salon.
It is a free ticket into Heaven—if the Christian religion is correct about the nature of Reality.
For sure the embryo, zygote, or fetus, if aborted, will miss out on a few years here in this vale of tears world of ours…possibly committing great sins and being condemned to an eternity in Hell. Instead, the soul of the aborted embryo, zygote, or fetus gets to go to Heaven on a free pass and spend all the rest of eternity with the Christian god. "
Once the discourse sinks to this level of absurdity, which would lead one to conclude that all acts of murder are acts of charity and which would sanction the killing of houseguests because they're in YOUR HOUSE, it's time to let this discussion end on M666's enlightened and elegantly expressed reasoning.