My Argument with a Pro-Abortion Journalist

It is difficult to respond with charity when "progressive" leftists show nothing but regressive disdain to their opponents.

There is a certain major journalist -- whom we shall refer to as "Mr. Z" for the sake of anonymity and my legal well-being -- whom I routinely challenge on his many false pro(re)gressive arguments. We have previously had an email exchange, while one of my numerous letters was published in his newspaper.

In Mr. Z's most recent tirade, he lambasts the pro-life agenda (whom he refers to under the misleading moniker of "anti-choice") for "not worrying about real babies" and "defending pseudo babies while not changing any diapers themselves." In what be one of the most ridiculous sentences in liberal journalistic history, Mr. Z writes:

"I, like most Americans, differentiate between actual, born-and-alive-in-the-real-world-now babies and the fertilized egg the size of the period at the end of this sentence that typically gets aborted."

This, my friends, is apparently what passes for a well-reasoned opinion piece these days. I could not resist a response. My first email to Mr. Z and his newspaper read:

It is interesting that Mr. Z would heap such derision on activists who care about the welfare of (in his own words) a "fertilized egg the size of a period." Mr. Z seems to forget that he also previously existed as a being no larger then the period which ends this sentence. Furthermore, when you deny an entire segment of our population its humanity, you find yourself on the very same intellectual slippery slope which has previously been used to justify the brutal murder of millions of other innocent "non-persons." I would think that a Jewish thinker would be more sensitive about making such unwarranted generalizations.

Much to my chagrin, Mr. Z replied quickly:

"Like the baby metaphor, the abortion-equals-holocaust line of thinking only really works if you already believe it. I could just as easily point out that the tendency of pro-lifers to force their religious scruples through law onto the unwilling smacks of the Spanish inquistiion. But that would be insensitive, though I'm not sure how somebody standing in the street with a five-foot photo of mangled fetuses can talk of "sensitivity." Thanks for writng."

You're more likely to get cohesive arguments out of a high-school debate team than the average liberal journalist, it seems. While I elected to ignore Mr. Z's blatant lack of knowledge regarding historical events like the Spanish Inquisition (which were just about as religious as another more-political-than-religious event, the Reformation), I couldn't resist another response:

"Thanks for your response. I will only briefly tackle what you wrote, in all charity and respect, simply because I can see that you have not thought this issue through. I will only itemize the list to make it clear, not in the intention of being condescending.

1.) The word "baby" is not a "metaphor," but rather only a label, albeit an emotional one. Yet one my continue to ask: when is it a baby? When it is wanted? Only after it is born? It is a terrible burden to define the beginning of our shared humanity.

2.) I never said "abortion = holocaust." I clearly said that it is a philosophical slippery slope to remove the rights of our shared humanity from any segment of the population. The Nazis thought that the mentally ill and elderly were "undesirables" whose life was a social burden; they also had no qualms regarding abortion. Slippery slopes being what they are, itt was not a far intellectual leap to label an entire nationality as sub-human. Consider what manner of rationalization it took to allow otherwise cultured and mannered men to slaughter thousands of men with their own bare hands.

3.) I never mention religion, nor are you fair to assume that I am religious. I've always said that atheists and secular humanists should be the most vehement pro-lifers. To the Judeo-Christian mentality, there is at least an afterlife. To the secular humanist, you are robbing a unique human creature of their only chance at existence. This is a terrible crime to commit in the name of social convenience.

4.) The people who stand in the streets with pictures of dismembered fetuses are simply trying to express the truth about the abortion procedure; it is a truth that demands an insensitive expression, as nothing else seems to get through.

-I appreciate your return email, and hope that you take these points under consideration. You are far too intelligent of a man to write the manner of article which was published in today's paper."

Predictably, Mr. Z never responded to this, as those who are grossly in error seldom wish to confront the glaring failings of their arguments. Yet his most recent column betrayed either further disdain for his readership, or perhaps the presence of an editor asking him to "tone it down a bit."

This most recent column, after the vicious anti-life attack, was about muffins.

Yes, "muffins." . . .