Politics of Appeasement

This makes me sick. I am literally disgusted by Judie Brown. I find it unbelievable her organization and others would spend large amounts of donor dollars attacking other prolife organizations.

How does this help? How does this help stop abortion? How does it further the prolife cause to publicly attack other prolife organizations?

As such, the alleged ban has never had any actual effect on the overall goal of restoring absolute protection to every single innocent preborn baby.

Except that polls have continually showed that the debate over partial-birth abortion has changed the minds of many people on abortion. If the prolife goal of banning abortion is to ever be accomplished, we must employ tactics and strategy which help us win hearts and minds. I don't know how publicly attacking prolife organizations wins hearts and minds.

I would love for Judie to point out what ALL has done in the last 20 years which have had an "actual effect on the overall goal of restoring absolute protection to every single innocent preborn baby."

But I shouldn't be surprised that this kind of blustering nonsense is coming from Judie Brown. She's the same woman who attacked Colorado legislators for introducing an abortion ban with a life of the mother exception. She said "Thus it is not a ban, but it does enshrine abortion into the law. Hope it fails to pass. And undoubtedly it will."

Judie said this before reading the legislation because if she had read it she would have realized the legislation had the same life of the mother exception wording as the South Dakota abortion ban which she favored.

************************************************

The ban still allows PBA. All the abortionist
needs do is say the baby inadvertently slipped
out too far. Oh and then if he isn't a liar, he
can still rip the baby's arms and legs off.

Stop regulating child killing!

Brown and others like her think that until we can legally protect all unborn humans, we shouldn't protect any unborn humans. Absurd.

I think she needs to "repent" of that view.

********************************************

Mr. Klusendorf allows no opposing posts
on his site.

We welcome the debate!

Perhaps he can tackle some of the substance
of the letter.

Scott-
That is lie the pro-life industry and the secular media continue to perpetuate. Judy and other pro-life ministries would support a law that said:

"All abortions after the second trimester shall be considered 1st degree murder"

That is an incremental law that we would all support.

Leslie,
If you would like to respond to my arguments please do so in your own comments. Do not add something onto my comment (by editing it) and never indicate who is making the comment. That is an inappropriate way of dealing with comments you disagree with.

I'll continue to do things (and support prolife organizations) to limit and restrict abortion with the end goal of stopping abortion while you continue to waste your donors' money on cheap attacks at other prolifers.

Scott allows no opposing posts on his site? Are you referring to comments or posts? If posts then well, yeah, duh - it's his site - it doesn't make sense for him to allow a post with opinions he disagrees with.

He does, however, allow comments by individuals who disagree with him on various issues (including numerous comments by your husband) and doesn't edit them with snide comments like you do.

From Judie's blog entry above: "The sad fact-and the reason the ad was prepared in the first place-is that moral relativism (political correctness, if you will) has crept into pro-life politics and blinded many from seeing the difference between fact and fiction."

Moral relativism and political correctness are not the same thing, and I don't think Dobson is guilty of either. I'm sorry, but how dare you accuse Dr. Dobson of being political, Judie? Even if Dobson was dead-wrong on his assessment of the PBA ban, it is a logical fallacy to make the stretch that he must be being politically correct. (or a moral relativist.) Am I missing something major here? I must ask the same thing that Scott Klusendorf has asked for on his blog: Please show me where Dobson has ever advocated either the view of moral relativism, political correctness or legal positivism properly defined. Until I see that, I am under the belief that you are overstating your case even more than Dobson overstated the positive aspects of the PBA ban. (and wouldn't it be ironic if you really are as or more guilty of the same thing you are publically attaching Dobson for?)

I think the biggest weakness in the entire pro-life movement right now is how divided we are. The pro-aborts are remarkably unified. (You never see Planned Parenthood attack NARAL with a public full-page ad.) The pro-aborts already have the advantadge of having way more professional staff than the pro-life movement, and yet we actually compound the problem by attacking each other. The scary thing is this: You can only fold a sheet of paper in half seven times. The question: How many times have we divided the pro-life movement already over arguments about incremental legislation vs. bans, capital punishment, birth control, even rape and incest? I have strong opinions about all of those issues, and I think it's important to discuss them with a wide variety of people and then forumlate the best responses when a pro-abort brings one of those issues up. However I DON'T think we should attack each other publically when we disagree on those issues, nor should we attach each other when we disagree on strategy and definitely not something like how much good did the PBA-ban really do?

It's time to Unite the Divided, and Divide the United.

In other words, let's create public debate about issues LIKE partial-birth abortion, fetal pain legislation, selective reduction and other horrendous things that the pro-aborts disagree on. Then we can watch them divide themselves, and when it comes to legislation, take half their votes as well. (We also gain public favor by having the obviously more reasonable position.) I think the pro-life movement, (the Divided) are divided enough.

And Judie, please don't edit my comment like you did the others. Just reply to my question in another comment the way Scott does. Thanks!

Scott,

Comments that I and James tried to put on your blog responding to your arguments were NEVER posted. But, you felt free to attack James on your site as never answering your questions.

Your comments Leslie posted were not edited.

Scott please tell us when you were given authority by God to determine who gets to live and who gets to die. We can make incremental laws that do not enshrine the right to kill children.

Sorry, Lolita, I do not believe you about posting comments. When your own husband, James, said his comments were not showing up, I had him send them to me personally and I posted them. For you to pretend I did not is a flat out lie. The only thing we refused to post, as I said above, were redundant requests that I debate you and others on another blog forum. If you sent other comments that did not include that redundant request, I never saw them.

As for Bob Enyart, the sword cuts both ways. Bob is free to respond with comments on our blog to any posts of mine and debate my points there. He hasn't answered any of my points so I don't see the need to go over to yet another blog forum to debate him there. Bob is refusing to engage me on my forum like I am declining to do the same on his.

As for your claim that I am deciding who lives and dies, that is silly and you know it. The pro-abortion Suprememe Court, not me, mandated who lives and who dies. The Court, not me, said that no unborn child has the right to life. I am simply trying to limit the damage insofar as possible given current political realities. For you to distort my position as you have is intellectualy dishonest. It's yet another reason why debating you on another blog forum is a waste of time. Again, your position amounts to this: Until we can legally save all unborn children we shouldn't save any. I'd like to hear you actually defend that position, minus the bad theology.

Scott,
The other forum is not a Blog forum and it is not "his" forum, for the tenth time. It is a better platform for debate that the blog format (see my comment above)

Furthermore, you continue to misrepresent our position. We have NEVER said "Until we can legally save all unborn children we shouldn't save any." Those are your words. If you would just take a moment to actually read what we say and all of the comments at your site that were never put up you would see that I say things like;

""Scott-
That is the lie the pro-life industry and the secular media continue to perpetuate. Judy and other pro-life ministries would support a law that said:

"All abortions after the second trimester shall be considered 1st degree murder"

That is an incremental law that we would all support.""

So please stop with the misrepresentations.

James, et al, write: "Judy and other pro-life ministries would support a law that said: "All abortions after the second trimester shall be considered 1st degree murder."

And those that happen before wouldn't be?

Thus, Judy is also deciding who lives and dies, right? Her so-called incremental bill excludes protection for 1st trimester humans. In other words, it ends (implicitly) with "and you may still kill the (early) baby."

Well, no it is not the net result. In my example (just a simple example) we would be protecting all third trimester babies, and then we could fight to protect all 2nd trimester babies too. That would be an acceptable incremental strategy. The bill does not have to end with "But everyone shall have the right to kill babies in the 1st and 2nd trimester." That would be a law we should oppose. We should never codify into law the right to kill children.

Have you even read this Scott?

http://coloradorighttolife.org/openletter

It contains a link to the ruling? Have you read it?

The justices have moved the partial birth murder from the neck to to the navel (and not even that if it wasn't the abortionists intent! As if that could be trusted!) and you think we should continue to follow the pro-life industries lead for another 15 years while another 20 million kids get ripped apart, trying to get the partial birth abortion threshold moved from the navel to the hips!

There are various incremental laws we can support but compromised incremental laws and rulings that effectively say "and then you can kill the baby" violate God's enduring command "Thou shall not murder" and should never be supported, especially by those who claim to be Christian.

Will you admit that partial birth abortions (an abortion where part of the baby is out of the mom) are not prohibited under the ruling?

And will you admit that not one abortion will be canceled because the abortionist says something like "sorry, we can't kill your baby today, the court has banned the partial birth abortion, you'll just have to let your baby live?"

Scott said "You don't call that editing? Tell me, why should anyone believe you about the comments you allegedly left at my site when you cannot tell the truth about the ones right in front of you, in this very post?"

You could believe her because she is a pro-life Christian woman whom you should give the benefit of the doubt and because I gave you my testimony above about my experience at your Blog site which was awful confirmed her assertion but gave you a possible out, in case there is a glitch in your system.

Unfortunately, Brown's editorial provides nothing of substance with which to even debate. She uses proof by assertion to suggest that partial birth abortion legislation is a "wicked ruling" and will not provide any protection to anyone or have any effect on protecting the preborn.

To go further, she asserts that her assertion is not her opinion but "an honest assessment of reality." Again, no substance but more smoke claiming political appeasement and lies. If she bears the truth, why is it that she cannot engage the propositions of her opponents without stooping to ad homenim (e.g., hypocritical liars) and impugning the motives of other pro-lifers?

James,
You can mock me all you want, but it won't advance your case one bit. As for your two questions, I have delat with both before, but here's a reveiw.

First, I reject them prmeise of question #2, namely, that a law has to save lives in order to be effective in helping us reach our goals. The Emancipation Proclomation didn't free one slave south of the Mason Dixon line, but it redefined the Civil War and pushed the brutality of slavery to the forefront. I think the same can be said about PBA, and that's progress by any measure.

Second, I agree the language of some of the judges in the recent PBA decision tries to uphold abortion rights. Never said that wasn't the case. However, you must distinguish between the language of the judges (i.e., their legal blatherings) and the actual premises they put in place with their ruling, premises which can be a help to us in the future. True, we shouldn't glorify the SCOTUS ruling; instead, we should make sober judgments about what can be done in light of it. If your point had been more modest--"Hey folks, not everything is rosy with SCOTUS and PBA and we've got lots of work to do"--I'd be the first to agree. No one that I know in the pro-life movement thinks we've won a major victory.

But as I said in previous posts, it doesn't follow from this nothing good can come from the decision. For example, the Court ruled the Federal PBA Act 1) is not void for vagueness, 2) does not impose an undue burden, 3) does not require a "health' exception, and 4)is not facially invalid--meaning the Court is no longer inclined to have special ad-hoc rules favoring those who challenge abortion regulations.

As I said in my initial reply to Enyart, point #4 is most important in my view. Hadley Arkes explains its significance:

"In a piece last January in First Things ("The Kennedy Court") I anticipated that Kennedy would try to resolve the case in the most limited way by simply rejecting the decisions in the lower courts to strike down a law on abortion in a "facial challenge." In most cases, a facial challenge will be accepted only when there appear to be no conceivable circumstances in which the law could be constitutional. With laws on abortion, however, the situation is inverted: The federal judges have been willing to enjoin the enforcement of these laws in facial challenges if there is any conceivable circumstance in which the law might be unconstitutional. Kennedy has now made it clear that this inversion of the law has been ended, and that is no small point: It means that laws on abortion will be allowed to work, to have their effect; that they will not be struck down flippantly on the basis of airy speculations offered by people who object to having abortions restricted. The laws would not be challenged then unless there is a concrete case of someone actually denied an abortion that could clearly be tested."

"Page Not Found" is what shows up at your link serge. Spam is a ridiculous accusation. I posted the same post at all three of the active bloggers there to see if any of you would dare post the open letter to Dr. Dobson. Hardly spam.

Like I said before Serge, I would love to post at your site, but will not now, unless you change the something significant, it is wholly unworkable when valid, related comments are rejected for no reason (given, at least) and then it can take days to even see if the comment was accepted. Then I am totally left in the dark as to why the comment was rejected or if it was rejected when it shows up later. To say, that trying to communicate with you guys at your site is extremely frustrating is an understatement.

The whole point of contacting you was to get a national public debate between Scott and Bob Enyart. I tried to refrain from having the debate at your obscure blog site so that the whole body of Christ / Pro-life movement could benefit from the debate and have a clear strategy to move forward. There is nothing wrong with avoiding the debate at your site for a higher purpose but you guys just don't seem to get it.

It amazes me how you guys miss so much of what is said. Scott continues to call TOL - www.Theologyonline.com "Bob's website" which I have corrected numerous times. It is a location that is conducive to a real time debate and I have welcomed you to put forth an alternative site other than your little known and cumbersome blog site. Here is an example of the debate format;

http://www.theologyonline.com/index.php?page=battle

I cannot for the life of me, figure out why you consider this venue threatening.

So how about it? Lets have the debate at the location of your choice AND TOL concurrently and lets have it in January! That seems fair and don't you think the pro-life strategy is a topic worth debating, considering the total failure we have in the fake PBA ban?

You are a great debater Scott, the babies and pro-life community deserve the best (you) to get to the truth.

P.S. Thank you for answering those questions, I can't wait to see them responded to in a national debate!

Problem is, Lolita, you've not once presented one shred of evidence why your position is more biblical than mine. Try doing that before slapping me with your holier than thou spirituality.

What I find interesting in the debate re:Biblical ethics is that Scott provides a concrete basis for morality on the basis of the character of God. I particularly appreciate the statement, "God's objective truth radically changes the Christian disciple more and more into the image of his Master."

In contrast, the argument presented in the post above (by Brown) is utilitarian in nature. In particular, Brown states, "the effect of that ruling on the future well being of preborn children and their right to life is nil."

Rather than arguing from objective truth grounded in the character of the Creator, Brown appears to appeal to pragmatism by suggesting that an approach that involves incrementalism does not work and is therefore immoral.

Lolita,
When you cannot ban child killing at the present moment, the next best thing is to limit the evil done.

Why wouldn't that be Biblical?

Lolita,
I reject your premise that incrementalists are regulating child-killing. We are doing no such thing. The federal courts, not pro-life lawmakers, decided that no unborn child has a right to life and can be killed for any reason whatsoever. Activist judges are the ones ultimately regulating both child-killing and those measures designed to restrain it.

And herein lies a major problem with your previous post: In the guise of moral purity, you fail to take into account the role of the federal courts in abortion policy. No doubt, you and I agree Roe v. Wade is unjust. It is also (for now) the law of the land. Legislators, however strong their pro-life convictions, cannot overturn that law. Remember: The federal courts have totally co-opted the issue from the other two branches of government, the legislative and the executive, leaving the people no real say on the matter. Lawmakers can, however, support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by this act of raw judicial power, thus lessening its negative consequences. In this case, writes Nathan Schlueter, incrementalists "are not protecting the right to kill the unborn in limited cases, but are preventing the killing of the unborn in all but those cases. If we were living in a time prior to Roe, the situation might be different."

Until the judicial power grab is reversed at the federal level and states can once again propose laws to fully protect all unborn humans (and may that day come soon), how can we best save lives? We could, I suppose, pass perfect legislation that has no hope of surviving a federal court challenge. Dong so might make us feel better, but it saves no lives whatsoever. Moreover, these ill-timed bills, once struck down by the courts, only serve to create yet another layer of established legal precedent against us while, at the same time, they throw pro-life dollars into the pockets of pro-abort attorneys. (When you lose a court case, you pay the other guy's legal fees.) In short, you show me: Where are the votes at SCOTUS to either 1) uphold a bill fully protecting all unborn humans, or, 2) uphold an incremental law of the type that you and Judy Brown would support? You and I both know they're not there.

Here's a better option: Instead of making a moral statement we can make a moral impact by legislating to protect as many lives as we can given the judicial restrictions currently imposed on us. "The wise statesman," writes Harry Jaffa, "will act to achieve the greatest measure of justice the world in which he is acting admits." Doing so does not constitute an illicit cooperation with an unjust law. It does not concede the legitimacy of any abortion. It does not collapse into moral relativism, a point you make often but nowhere defend. Rather, it recognizes current legal and political obstacles and works within them to save as many lives as possible.

Recognizing that elective abortion is already authorized by a more powerful, over-arching federal court does not constitute cooperation with any abortion. Nor does it admit or support the rest of the evil that we are powerless (legally or politically) to reverse right now. Note also that we are not agreeing to the killing of some lives to save others. The killing will happen regardless. We are agreeing to the saving of as many lives as we can.

True, you could say it's best to simply remove ourselves from the current legal and political framework that we've inherited. But living in this world often involves tolerating some evils you are powerless to change to avoid even greater ones you can. Pro-lifers who opt out of the admittedly less-than perfect political realm abandon unborn children to the care of pro-abortionists. (Of course, there is a point at which a government becomes so thoroughly unjust that revolution is warranted. Few pro-lifers think we've reached that point, however.)

One final point. Throughout our exchange, you've repeatedly questioned the value of extra-biblical knowledge, insisting that Scripture alone be your guide. Problem is, you are doing something that is extra-biblical. Nowhere does Scripture teach that other sources of knowledge have little or nothing to contribute. Instead, its claim is more modest: The biblical documents are sufficient for knowledge leading to salvation, a point I wholly concur with.

Indeed, the Scripture repeatedly affirms the value of extra-biblical knowledge. In addition to Paul quoting pagan poets (Acts 17), Scripture acknowledges the wisdom of cultures like the Edomites (Jer. 49:7), the Phoenicians (Zachariah 9:2), and many others. The book of Proverbs is filled with examples of knowledge obtained from studying non-biblical sources--ants, for example. Furthermore, Scripture repeatedly affirms the existence of natural moral law: true moral principles rooted in the way God made things and knowable by all people independently of the Bible (Job 31:13-15; Romans 1-2). In fact, the Old Testament gives examples of people qualified to minister precisely because they had mastery of extrabiblical knowledge. In Daniel 1: 3-4, 2:12-13, 5:7, we see Daniel and his friends positioned to influence Nebuchadnezzar because they had mastered Babylonian culture, literature, and science better than their pagan counterparts. Because of this, they were ready to serve God when called upon.

As John Wesley wrote (himself a scholar on many non-Biblical texts), "To imagine that none can teach you but those who are themselves saved from sin is a very great and dangerous mistake. Give not place to it for a moment." Or, as the late Dr. Francis Shaeffer observed, the Bible is true truth, but not exhaustive truth. It is completely true about everything to which it speaks, but it doesn't speak about everything there is to know.

Best,
Scott