Nathan Sheets

Why I'm Writing This (Again)

Because people in various communities ask me why I'm pro-life when the subject is brought up (and trust me, I try not to bring it up as much as possible) , I have grown tired of trying to explain my views at that location and thus bringing on the abortion wank and flooding my inbox with 500 messages. Thus, from now on, whenever anyone asks how someone like me (hey, wait a minute!) can be pro-life, I will point them to these posts. I will try to make them quick and thoughtful, because I know that no one wants to read an exegesis on pro-life thought.

That being said, I'm not going to laboriously go over every study and every argument in these posts. Rather, I'm going to go over the foundation of my personal pro-life beliefs and then hit on some of the major "OMGRAPE!!1!1!!" arguments and then that's that. This is not an issue that people will be convinced of through reading a lot of stuff. It is--and I say this as a non-Christian--an issue of the heart and of one's own morality.

Disclaimers--Haha, Just Kidding

I would really rather not start this whole thing off by saying a bunch of disclaimers so as to make people not be offended. Hell, I even considered NOT making these posts sarcastic and cynical. But then that would be denying who I am, I told myself. So the only disclaimer I'm going to write is my oft-said disclaimer on the differences between "the pro-choice movement" and "pro-choicers":

It Goes Thusly:

I hate the pro-choice movement. I do not hate pro-choicers. Not every pro-choicer is in the pro-choice movement, just as not every pro-lifer is in the pro-life movement. So if I make a horribly offensive comment at "pro-choicers", please know that I am referring to the movement, not the people. I live in Oregon, for heaven's sake: if I hated pro-choicers I would have no friends whatsoever.

OK, you asshole pro-choicers, let's begin.

What I Want People to Know

If you're a normal pro-choicer reading this, I want you to know some things. Firstly, I want pro-choicers to realize that there is a great deal of depth and thoughtfulness to the pro-life argument. Even if you disagree with us, I think that we deserve respect. Many people are fixated on people holding a religious sign outside of an abortion clinic. That's not the depth of our argument. If it was, I wouldn't be pro-life. I certainly don't have an issue with pro-lifers doing these things, don't get me wrong. But if I brushed off the pro-choice movement because of what I perceived as a bunch of emotionally unstable stupid girls getting hysterical and waving coat hangers around while chanting inanely, then I wouldn't be able to also recognize that the foundations of the pro-choice movement are also quite sensible.

Another thing I hope that normal pro-choicers understand is the extreme position the "pro-choice movement" takes on abortion. Most pro-choicers don't believe in killing third trimester fetuses because it's a nice day outside. But that's what the movement advocates while, at the same time, hiding the fact that that is what they advocate. On the rare occasion you can get a pro-choice advocate to say the word "abortion", you sure as hell won't be able to get them to go into any more detail about the restrictions on abortion they support--because they don't support any.

And I'll End with This

The foundation of my personal pro-life philosophy is respect for human life. If you look at things in terms of human life, there is no reason to view a fetus as different than a 2 minute-old. Or a 6 year-old. Or a 40 year-old. These are all merely stages of development. When a fetus is ripped to shreds by an abortionist's tools, it is being discriminated against, legally, because of his or her age. They've done nothing--on the contrary, it's the mother and father who have done something, and yet so often we portray the mother as the victim of this TERRIBLE thing called "pregnancy". Thus, when we view the sexually-active mother as the victim, and the fetus as the aggressor, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to discriminate against that voiceless fetus and flush it down a tube while remaining self-righteously assured that we're noble people who love women and want to give them control over their own bodies.

I'll go more into it next time, kids!

I guess I am considering this my "coming out" piece to the pro-life movement...

Since leaving Christianity about eight months ago, I was able to confront some real doubts that I had about my faith, about Christianity and about morals in my life. I really was never able to address most of the moral issues and spiritual doubts in my life, due to the fact that, as a follower of Christianity, my opinions were generally decided for me via the Bible or pastor or Christian tradition. However, as someone who now realizes that he has no idea about the existence of a God, no idea who that God is or what role, if any, that God wants to have in our lives, I have now been able to deal with many issues. Interestingly enough, while the idea of God seems both possible and impossible simultaneously (read: I don’t know if God exists!) the issues of morality are still quite absolute. This is not to say that my morality is the same as it was under Christianity, but even those morals that have changed I am sure about.

Obviously, one of the biggest moral issues in my life has been abortion. Since I was sixteen years-old, I have been writing about abortion, attending pro-life events and educating my friends and co-workers about the issue whenever I get an appropriate chance. I have always been known as the “pro-life guy” among my friends (as well as the guy who enjoys the smell of skunk).

As more and more of the people I have known come to realize that I have left Christianity and am no longer resisting homosexuality, the number one question I get is “Are you still pro-life?” This question is not a hard one to answer, because the answer is an emphatic “yes”.

The issue of homosexuality can change in a snap depending on one’s religious views, for the simple fact that one’s religion generally decides one’s view on it. However, as stated often by pro-lifers, the pro-life position is not solely dependant on religion. It is the fundamental belief that all human life is of value, and that every step should be taken to preserve it. One does not need to be religious to remember that life is sacred and easily—in an instant—snuffed out.

It is really “easy” to kill a 10 week-old fetus. It cannot speak, cannot cry and is less developed than you or I. It is quickly vacuumed out of the uterus, generally doing little damage to the woman and leaving not a trace. Sometimes I ask myself, “Are the early-term babies worth it? Am I wrong on this? Is it really that big of a deal?” Is it possibly true, as many people either advocate or believe, that an early term baby—which admittedly has no self-awareness—is worth anything? I really do ask myself these questions and have my doubts every once in a while. That’s what’s so scary.

When we cannot hear the voices of those whom we are killing, it is easy to go on and say that killing them is morally acceptable. We subconsciously believe that if we cannot hear it, it is not our problem. Because we are gay, it is not our problem. Because we may be men, it is not our problem. Because it is not us doing it, it is not our problem. But it is our problem: it is society’s problem. We create and then destroy human life without discrimination, and while I don’t know if we ever will be punished by a deity angered by our actions, it doesn’t take a lot to see what abortion has done to our society, our children and our women. Abortion is the ultimate, silent, and state-sanctioned method of exploitation and discrimination of people in modern American history.

LaShawn Barber, a black blogger who is prolife, writes today:

Barack Hussein Obama is an “articulate” infanticide-supporting liberal who doesn’t like being called a liberal.

And he’s going to be our next president.

I have no grand theories about why this is so. I just have a feeling he’ll be living in the White House come November. I feel no “racial pride” that he’s the first black major party nominee or that he’ll be the first black president of the United States, because values trump race in my world. Anyone who believes it’s OK for “doctors” to crush the heads of infants in the birth canal isn’t getting my vote. If you’re black and pro-life but feel “torn” between racial pride about his nomination and disgust for his pro-death stance, shame on you. Get your priorities straight.

Ouch. It should be noted that LaShawn is not a "pro-life only blogger". She blogs mostly about music and, when she does blog about politics, she covers a wide array of topics. Apparently some people just can't get past infanticide.

OK, OK, I know I've been slacking on the pro-life front. Things in life have just been so different that I've felt more like blogging about them. But I feel that I should spend some time writing about pro-life stuff, though I don't really have a topic, so I'll just sort of do a stream-of-consciousness thing.

1) Pro-abortion groups are (once again) pretending to be horrified with the prospect of John McCain becoming president of the United States. They did the same thing with George Bush. John McCain is even less pro-life than Bush. But this shows the striking contrast between the pro-choice advocates here and those in other countries, such as England (as I've recently learned). Pro-choicers here faint and threaten to kill themselves with coat-hangers at the mere mention of something like parental notification, much less full abolition of abortion. John McCain has been so wishy-washy on the abortion issue, how they could even be afraid is beyond me. But it's always up to the gals at NARAL to be dramatic. One of my new favorite features of their blog is "Liberty Lowdown", where they generally cry womanly tears about John McCain. Is it just me, or is "Liberty Lowdown" a really corny-sounding name? John McCain has expressed his support over and over again for Roe vs. Wade. He might--and this is a big "might"--support federal legislation for parental notification/consent, but that's not ever going to get to him if we continue to have these Democrats running the show.

2) John McCain will probably not be able to get pro-life backing in the election, at least as strong as President Bush. Sure, National Right to Life will endorse him, because he'll obviously be better on the life issue than Oh-Go-Ahead-And-Allow-Infanticide Obama, but frankly, I'm not feeling it. Heck, I was still a liberal when Bush ran for re-election, and I had more enthusiasm for him than I now have for McCain as a cranky conservative. Perhaps it's his liberal stances on a lot of other issues, or maybe it's because he's forgetting to even pretend that he's more pro-life than he really is, but I'm just not feeling much excitement. This can, of course, change as we draw nearer to the possibility of having our first half-black President who approves of infanticide being sworn in.

3) Lastly, this would be an awesome bedroom:

As one of those gays who doesn't believe in a "gay gene", I fantastically look forward to the day that it is discovered, because the pro-choice movement is going to have to figure some things out.

Because the movement officially (but quietly) stands for abortion on demand (any time during pregnancy for any reason--and yes, that includes the third-trimester for those of you having trouble grasping "any time"), when the gay gene is discovered you are suddenly going to have an influx of two different kinds of people: 1) pro-choicers who want to abort their children because they are gay and 2) pro-choicers who want to restrict abortion only in this one instance.

For some reason, it appears as if every gay and lesbian in this country supports abortion rights. It's as if there's a "abortion-supporter gene" included in the DNA structure of virtually every gay and lesbian I've ever met! Let's research it! I'm sure we'll come up with it! It must be there because I know they're born that way! Granted, most gays and lesbians (or just pro-choicers in general) are not NARAL-type pro-choicers, but many strongly feel that 1) abortion is needed to help women or 2) that it's not their problem so they're just going to ignore that issue.

And of course NARAL isn't going to budge on the issue. They have no problem killing blacks, why would they care about a few fags? "A fetus is a fetus, no matter their DNA structure." (A very nice motto to have when comparing human fetuses with that of dogs, as if that were relevant in any possible way in this debate.) This will be a moment when you'll want to pop some popcorn and grab your lawn chair: the pro-choicers will have the greatest schism of all time! *thunder and lightning crash*

While normal pro-choicers (hell, even me) can understand the desire of women who really feel as if they cannot care for a child and who are poor and single to abort a child as early as possible, a woman offing her gay fetus looks just a tad less noble when she's a suburbanite not wanting to deal with a lifetime of paying for baton-twirling lessons or expensive shoes. Indeed, she begins to look quite heinous.

But you gotta love the ladies at NARAL: this woman is still their amassment of courage and feminine power, shining with glorious light with choirs singing mystical chords around her! They adore any kind of woman who can kill her own child, via doctor or coat hanger, and will do anything--anything--to make sure she can get it without any kind of delay or harm to her person, including being able to pay for the thing herself.

The pro-choicers will be forced to actually take a public stand for what their position has been all along, and at least their position will be consistent: if you can kill the blacks or the unwanted, you should be able to kill the gays. While enraged pro-lifers are generally ignored by the media (unless of course they kill someone, in which case they are the epitome of all that is "pro-life") the media generally listens to groups of enraged gays. The feminists will get defensive, the gays will get defensive, and pro-lifers like me will have to stifle our giggles throughout the entire bout of drama. It will be glorious.

While it is obvious that aborting a baby because of their sexual orientation is quite deplorable, it's also worth noting that it's also just as disgusting to abort a child for any other reason. If a woman can abort for "cultural" reasons such as being looked down upon and called a "slut" in her community, why is it any less acceptable to abort the mother of a gay guy who doesn't want to deal with what could very well be a strong homophobic cloud in her community? We can argue all we want that such a sentiment shouldn't exist, but so also the stigma of the unwed mother shouldn't exist. Why is one an acceptable reason to abort while the other isn't?

The crones at NARAL are celebrating the fourth year anniversary of the "March for Women's Lives", an event that took place in Washington DC four years ago. Because the fourth anniversary is the Silk Anniversary, NARAL is appropriately recalling stories from the march and immortalizing them on their blog. Later today they will fold linen napkins in the shape of coat hangers.

The March for Women's Lives was a smashing success for the pro-choicers. They had a lot of women there, at least 800,000, possibly over 1 million. Pro-choicers gloat that their march drew in considerably more people than those who show up to the annual March for Life. This, to them, is solid evidence that more women are pro-choice than pro-life (I'm still checking, but I also believe that it's also evidence to them that the fetus can't feel pain). It's worth pointing out that dragging a bunch of rhetorically-ginned up college-aged women off the street and getting them to Washington DC for one event is considerably easier than getting over a million people to show up in January-weather year after year. (Note to fellow anti-choicers: can we PLEASE criminalize abortion in August so we can march in celebration of it every year?) And yet we get an average of 300,000 pro-lifers there every year. Multiply that by 35 years and we've slaughtered the pro-choicers, which is terribly ironic.

The blog entries are presumably still coming in, but NARAL policy director Donna Crane had an unintentionally ironic story about meeting the wife of Christopher Reeve, paralyzed actor and embryonic stem-cell proponent. She discussed the link between we "anti-choicers" and the death of Christopher Reeve. While his death is largely blamed on lack of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, no one sees that, in fact, embryonic stem-cell research did nothing to help him. The fact remains that, today, four years after his death, he would still be paralyzed, advocating for the destruction of human embryos in order to help him personally. Notice that one can understand Reeve's selfishness and be somewhat empathetic. No one wants to be paralyzed. That doesn't makes his position automatically ethical, however. And what other issue can we empathize with the killers of innocent people? Abortion. Funny how NARAL's on top of both.

Even I can concede that there is a difference between destroying a fetus and destroying an embryo. I think most pro-lifers see that and even some grapple with it. It's much easier for us to accept a few cells being used for supposedly helpful research as opposed to a 2nd trimester unborn baby. But that's where we differ from the pro-choicers. We give the benefit of the doubt to life, every single time, even if we cannot see or understand its value. Pro-choicers, in general I am sure, oppose slaughtering children in Darfur. However, their respect for life begins only after a child has passed out of the birth canal. Then magically, they have rights and we should be outraged that evil people are killing them and their families! They dismiss the deaths of fetuses as nothing, however. After all, who are fetuses compared to women? Well, then I ask, what value to society does a 4 year-old in Darfur have? Realistically, none. And frankly, what value to society does even a 16 year-old pregnant girl have? Realistically, none.

But that doesn't matter. Pro-lifers don't base a person's value on their contribution to society. We give them the benefit of the doubt and we encourage them to leave a productive life We are against the taking of any innocent human life--even that "potential life" found in a bunch of cells in a dish.

Of course Donna doesn't have a problem with chopping up embryos in a lab. She is for abortion for any reason, throughout all nine months of pregnancy. She thinks that simply changing your mind during labor is an OK reason to kill your baby. Sure, it may never happen, but that what she supports. By being cool with killing early-term fetuses and embryos, the pro-abortion position of NARAL has reached horrifying proportions. Perhaps when euthanasia on infants with Downs Syndrome becomes the status quo, NARAL will be right along side those proponents as well.

***imtakingjillstanektodinner!****

EDIT: Um, I told her that Portland has lots of cool places to go, and I was thinking, you know, Indian, Italian, Thai, BBQ, etc. She said, "What about organic?"

I must admit that I have no idea where such a restaurant exists in Portland, if at all. *researches*