*WARNING: Contains frank language concerning human sexuality
A most interesting and depraved piece from WorldNetDaily today detailing the email exchange between Dr. Warren Throckmorton and Dr. William Harrison about the recent abortion-related informed consent decision in South Dakota.
On his blog, Throckmorton pointed out that despite the "free speech" excuses made by Planned Parenthood that requiring abortionists to tell women seeking abortions that abortion ends a human life, prescribed speech is not at all uncommon in the information requirements of the medical community.
Throckmorton also questioned whether pro-abortion doctors actually believe the abortion is ending a human life, so he contacted Harrison for his perspective.
A most interesting and depraved piece from WorldNetDaily today detailing the email exchange between Dr. Warren Throckmorton and Dr. William Harrison about the recent abortion-related informed consent decision in South Dakota.
On his blog, Throckmorton pointed out that despite the "free speech" excuses made by Planned Parenthood that requiring abortionists to tell women seeking abortions that abortion ends a human life, prescribed speech is not at all uncommon in the information requirements of the medical community.
Throckmorton also questioned whether pro-abortion doctors actually believe the abortion is ending a human life, so he contacted Harrison for his perspective.
"I e-mailed Dr. Harrison regarding the South Dakota law. … I asked him if the South Dakota statement was accurate," Throckmorton wrote.
Harrison's reply started: "Life is being terminated when a male wears a condom, or has a wet dream or 'spills his seed of life on the ground' or in someone's mouth or anus. Or when he ejaculates into the vagina of a woman who isn't ovulating or is post menopausal. The sperm are alive until they die. And the egg is alive until it dies. Each is a unique human life, etc. … The only reason the S.Dakota leg passed that law was to either make a girl or woman who was not prepared to have a baby have that baby, or to make her suffer as much emotionally as they could."
What an incredibly ignorant--and incredibly wrong--statement for a doctor to make!
Sperm do not constitute "unique human life." The sperm is a biological component of the man from which it comes. It has genetic material from his chromosomes, and will not become a human being until it joins with genetic material from the mother. The sperm will never become a "unique human life" unless one of them joins with a human egg.
Only when the man's sperm joins with an egg from a female does it become "unique human life"--and this is the point at which the pro-life community objects to that newly formed "unique human life" from being murdered.
But as ignorant and outrageous as that comment--and the one about the law being created to make a woman suffer--was, Harrison wasn't done embarrassing himself.
The article says Harrison then forwarded a letter to Throckmorton that Harrison had written to a newspaper on the subject of whether abortion activists had any sorrow over the loss of the unborn.
We are ending the life of an embryo or a fetus. Not the life of a person, but certainly a creature that might have become a person under other circumstances.
This "doctor" called a sperm a "unique human life" on one hand, yet refused to recognize an unborn child--which has unique DNA--as a unique human life.
Harrison continued and quoted Rubaiyat of Omar Khyyam, an ancient poem, and compared the abortion of unborn children to the language in that poem, calling abortion the canceling "from the scroll of universe one luckless human soul."
This guy is all over the map! Sperm constitute a "unique human life," but an unborn child does not, and yet acknowledges that these "potential people" have a human soul!
What's more, he boasted that in murdering the unborn, abortionists are "doing God's work."
How can an educated professional be so profoundly ignorant? Or is it a willful and determined blindness to the obvious which allows a butcher of human life to accomplish his licentious work and still sleep at night?
Sometimes our human vindictive nature yearns to see an evil person get what's coming to them. But that isn't an attitude Christ approves of. Besides, some come-uppances can be so hard, no decent person wants to be within 10 miles of such accountability.
Sometimes our human vindictive nature yearns to see an evil person get what's coming to them. But that isn't an attitude Christ approves of. Besides, some come-uppances can be so hard, no decent person wants to be within 10 miles of such accountability.
I hope Harrison gets his heart and mind right before it's too late.
25 comments:
Doesn't God say we should hate evil?
How does that jive with your opinion that
we shouldn't yearn for the evil to get their
just deserts?
That's a good point, Leslie.
The Bible says we should hate evil, but that we should care about those who are caught up in it. My hope would be that Harrison would realize his error before it's too late, repent and receive God's pardon.
The Bible also says that while we will have a good idea of a person's spiritual condition by their acts (their "fruits"), we aren't to judge them with an attitude of moral superiority (the oft misquoted "judge not lest ye be judged")...and I think yearning for Harrison to be punished for such a twisted justification and advocacy of abortion would be too close to that forbidden judgment, if not completely across the line.
Leslie, your comment led me to go back and re-read what I wrote, and I realized I had a thought in mind that I apparently became distracted from before finishing. I added an additional line to the post that I hope clarifies that second-to-last paragraph a little better (must have been in too big of a hurry to post it and move on).
Thanks for prompting me to the clarification.
Mr. Ellis,
The "incredibly ignorant, incredibly wrong" statement the doctor made about sperm constituting a unique human life can be found right in the Bible, your alleged source of divine knowledge and wisdom. Have you ever wondered why God abhors masturbation? Aside from its association with lustful thoughts, the act of "spilling one's seed" was thought to waste the precious substance that contains all life -- sperm. When the Bible was written, people didn't know that the woman took part in half of the reproduction process; she was considered nothing more than an incubator.
You can thank science, that thing you so despise when it doesn't favor your bias, for teaching us that a sperm AND an ovum are essential for reproduction, and for dispelling one of the many incorrect claims the Bible makes about nature.
You'd think that God would have enlightened his beloved creations earlier on with something we now consider a no-brainer, but instead let them keep believing that if you masturbate, you've just killed a potential life. Perhaps another clue that the Bible was written by ignorant men and not an omniscient deity?
Anonymous, can you point out that verse in the Bible where it says sperm is a substance that "contains all life?" I don't think I've ever seen it.
Please enlighten me.
My apologies, Bob. I got ahead of myself in my explanation and should have clarified. I didn't mean that it's a concept one can find by citing chapter and verse. As with many other things in the Bible, you must consider historical context to understand concepts that aren't explicitly stated in scripture.
The ancient Hebrews had specific rules and regulations regarding seminal emission, called "keri" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keri#cite_ref-3). As with menstruation, seminal emission was a mystery to the ancient Hebrews. Why would a woman bleed for no apparent reason every month, and why would a man shoot out this curious substance when he's sexually excited? When something isn't understood, it's usually feared or otherwise revered, which explains the myriad rituals to "cleanse" oneself of what we now know to be natural, harmless bodily functions.
The Hebrews must have assumed that semen was pretty powerful stuff. By simple observation, they could infer that whenever it gets inside a woman, a baby most likely will appear. And since they had no way of knowing that women contribute to reproduction, and that a sperm must unite with an egg in order to produce a baby, logic told them that semen was the only component to creating life. This is corroborated in the article I provided: "Although the regulations clearly have some sanitary benefit in the light of modern medical knowledge, Biblical scholars see these regulations as having originally derived from taboo against contact with semen, because it was considered to house life itself, and was thus thought of as sacred" (footnote refers to Peake's Commentary on the Bible).
What I meant with my comment about how you'd think God would enlighten these people is this: There is no logical reason why God would tell his people to shun a woman for days after her menstrual cycle and childbirth, or require them to perform cleaning rituals to rid their skin and clothes of semen. It makes me wonder whether people were actually the ones who made up these taboos and rituals, not God. An omniscient deity would know better, and we're living proof that humans have the intellectual capacity to understand that menstruation and semen are not scary or mysterious. It's not an earth-shattering scientific discovery. So why didn't God tell us this from the start?
The answer I keep coming back to: Because God didn't write the Bible; men did, and attributed everything to a supernatural being because that's the only way they could understand the world.
"What's more, he boasted that in murdering the unborn, abortionists are 'doing God's work.'"
Well, many abortions ARE God's work. In the medical context of the word, an "abortion" occurs when the fetus dies and is expelled from the woman's body, whether naturally or forcibly. This includes spontaneous abortions, otherwise known in the politically correct world as "miscarriages." Softer terminology helps to mitigate that awful feeling of knowing that God has a hand in the death of the unborn, doesn't it?
Anonymous 9:14, Do you understand that the Talmud isn't part of the Bible? That it isn't authoritative in the way that the Bible is? That it isn't considered the Word of God?
So are you telling me that there is no Biblical reference to support your claim?
Are you also telling me that even if there was, you wouldn't accept it as authoritative in any way?
Why are we even having such an idiotic conversation where you cite a reference in an attempt to undermine a claim, when you don't even consider the source of your citation authoritative? Would you cite Alice in Wonderland to refute a claim that rabbits cannot talk? Your entire line of reasoning is silly, in light of your assumptions.
If your intent is to express your disbelief in the Bible, you can do that on a post covering that topic. The veracity of the Bible is not the topic here, but abortion and the inconsistent claims of Dr. Harrison are.
Anonymous 10:00, God does not intentionally kill unborn children; if you have any belief at all in eternal accountability, you might want to reconsider and rescind that implication that God intentionally kills unborn children. In fact, you might want to reconsider and rescind regardless of whether you believe or not, because you will be held accountable for so grossly misrepresenting the character of God, whether you believe you will be or not.
Like all death and suffering that occur in the world, miscarriages occur because Adam and Eve brought the curse of sin and death on the world with their original sin. God created a world where there was no death, no illness, and no suffering. Humans chose to trade that in for gaining the "knowledge of good and evil," for doing things there way rather than God's way. It wasn't a very good trade, was it?
Induced abortions, in contrast, happen when a human being deliberately and intentionally causes the death of an unborn child. It isn't a natural death because of a biological failure or defect, but a willful act of murder, one for which human beings are accountable (Genesis 9:6).
Let me say it again, in case I wasn't crystal clear. God did not want human beings to die, and he still does not want human beings to die. He does not want unborn human beings to die in the womb. Among other things, human beings die because of physical problems in their bodies because we are conceived into a fallen world; just as born people sometimes die from heart failure, etc., so sometimes unborn people die as they are developing in the womb. God doesn't want that for us, but God gave us free will and it's the choice our ancestors made, and one that we all live with due to their legacy.
You must have a horrible opinion of God, to believe that he exists to kill. It is totally inconsistent with the Bible, which one would theoretically hold as authoritative if one believes in God. I sincerely pray you will reconsider that attitude; as with Harrison, I wouldn't want to be nearby if you don't.
Bob,
Read the Old Testament again. Leviticus contains extensive instructions on how women must cleanse themselves after menstruation, and how men must cleanse their clothes and skin of semen. If these verses are neither authoritative nor the Word of God, then why are they in the Bible?
"You must have a horrible opinion of God, to believe that he exists to kill. It is totally inconsistent with the Bible."
"God did not want human beings to die, and he still does not want human beings to die."
Really?
"Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys."
1 Samuel 15:3
"So the Lord sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead." 1 Chronicles 21:14
Here's a cute one: "The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open." Hosea 13:16
And of course there's the Great Flood, and the sweet little bedtime story about how God commanded Abraham to slaughter his son Isaac on an altar to satisfy his ego -- only to say he was just kidding! What a sense of humor our Lord has!
God had no problem doing any of these things, yet you think he gets personally offended when a woman decides to have a tiny blastocyst vacuumed out of her uterus?
Anonymous 12:57, Do those verses state that human sperm and human eggs are unique human life?
You missed one critical difference, alexh2007: innocence
The examples you cited involved peoples who had rebelled egregiously against God and brought judgment on themselves. Just as Adam and Eve did to themselves and the human race, our sins have consequences.
A child in the womb has committed no sin, no crime.
Surely even you understand the difference between innocence and guilt.
The "blastocyst" as you put it (isn't it funny how obscure scientific terms help us distance ourselves from the moral consequences of our actions?) has DNA unique from both mother and father, and usually has a beating heart by the time a woman knows she's pregnant. It's no more an inanimate scientific term than you are.
Oh, and with Abraham and Isaac, God wasn't "kidding." God afforded Abraham an opportunity to fish or cut bait with regard to his faith. Though Abraham had several serious failures in his trust of God before that, he had none afterward. God knew exactly what Abraham would do in this situation...but Abraham didn't know until he was in the situation. He learned he really could trust God.
Wouldn't it be great if you trusted him that well? Maybe he'd bless you the way he blessed Abraham.
Bob,
What had the "little ones who were dashed to the ground" and the unborn babies who were "ripped" from pregnant women, as colorfully described in Hosea, done to bring God's judgment on themselves? This contradicts your statement that "A child in the womb has committed no sin, no crime." Is there scriptural evidence that these children and unborn babies had rebelled against God?
As for God's testing of Abraham, I understand the story and was being facetious when I said he was kidding. Still, you have to sympathize with Isaac; did the poor kid really deserve to be a pawn like that? Surely a being as intelligent and compassionate as God could have cooked up a less traumatizing way to test a man's faith...which he would already have known, if he's omniscient. So either God had a temporary lapse in intelligence, or he's just cruel.
"Wouldn't it be great if you trusted him that well? Maybe he'd bless you the way he blessed Abraham."
See, that's a much nicer approach than you took earlier, with your fire-and-brimstone warnings of "I sincerely pray you will reconsider that attitude; as with Harrison, I wouldn't want to be nearby if you don't" and "In fact, you might want to reconsider and rescind regardless of whether you believe or not, because you will be held accountable for so grossly misrepresenting the character of God, whether you believe you will be or not." Is that really what Christ would do? Wave his knowledge of salvation in my face condescendingly as if to say, "Sucks to be you! You'd better change your mind, or you'll be sorry!"? Scaring people into agreeing with you is not a good way to win souls for God. In fact, it's more in line with something a schoolyard bully would do.
To finally get back on topic, I'll answer the question you asked Anonymous 12:57 (who is me, surprise!). No, the verses I alluded to do not state that sperm/eggs are unique human life. I thought I'd explained it sufficiently when I said that not all concepts are explicitly stated in the Bible, and that one must understand historical context to "read between the lines." I noticed a parallel between Dr. Harrison's ignorant statements and what people in biblical times literally believed about sperm: that it was the only necessary component for creating life, and that the woman was just an incubator. I cited a source that talks about this, referring to the ancient Hebrew concept of "keri," which carried certain rituals and taboos that are evident in the Old Testament. This leads me back to my question, which you evaded by shooting a question back at me: If these verses are neither authoritative nor the Word of God, then why are they in the Bible?
I don't know God's motivation for everything he's said and done, but based on what I do know of his character, I'd guess that he was making it clear that the judgment for the sin of the people was going to be total. As when Adam and Eve sinned, they brought judgment on their progeny also, because adults are in authority over children and have dominion over them. Just as today, when we make war against a belligerent nation, we try to avoid killing innocent civilians, but while we try to limit collateral damage, the risk to civilians in the belligerent country doesn't stop us from bringing the belligerency to an end. In a fallen world, it's an unfortunate consequence of the evil choices of adults and leaders, and actually, an incentive for those in authority to do right, so they don't bring judgment on those under their care.
Also, in ancient times, children of conquered people would grow up to perpetuate the evil of their ancestors, often perpetuating that evil in revenge or simply through cultural influence. And as for the pre-born, they had no means for saving the unborn child while delivering judgment upon the adult woman; another unfortunate consequence of a fallen world--fallen because of bad human choice.
I don't think--in fact, I know--God had no lapse in intelligence or judgment in the case of Abraham and Isaac, and it's also demonstrably clear from the character evidence in the Bible that God is NOT cruel. When you consider that even one sin we commit would justify our immediate death, God is pretty kind and merciful in letting us keep living...and hopefully we eventually repent. If there had been a better way to accomplish God's purpose in that incident, I'm sure he would have taken it. Besides, Isaac's faith may have also been bolstered by the incident. (As an interesting side note, did you know that God sacrificed his own son Jesus on that very same mountain? God did not require Abraham to give up his son Isaac, but God gave up his son Jesus on the cross for the children of Abraham on that very same hill. So God was willing to go farther and give up more than he asked of a lowly human. That's love!)
You took issue with my warning about what you were saying and how you were saying it, and asked if that was what Christ would do? Read the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament for yourself and find out. If you do, you'll find that Jesus gave a soft answer when the situation warranted it, and he gave a frank one when it warranted it--and so did his apostles. It's his example I try to follow.
Finally, I still don't think you understand that the Talmud and other ancient opinions do not carry the authority and weight that the Bible does as the inspired Word of God. There are lots of good commentaries written about the Bible today by very intelligent, educated people who are in a genuine, personal relationship with God. But their commentaries and opinions are not authoritative as the Bible is.
And as to why the Levitical texts are still in the Bible, while the ritual and dietary requirements of the Mosaic Covenant are no longer required (Jesus established a New Covenant with his sacrifice on the cross), those texts remain to illustrate to us the history of God's revelation to humanity, and as an example (as they were supposed to be to the Jewish people) that God requires cleanliness and holiness from us in a relationship with him. God wants us hard-headed humans to understand how much he abhors the dirtiness of our sin, and how far we have to come in order to reach his holiness--a place Adam once held, but threw away in committing the first sin.
Thankfully, Jesus Christ has bridged that gulf between our dirtiness and God's holiness. All we have to do is surrender our sin and our will to Christ's sacrifice, and God counts that as a cleansing to cover our dirty sins.
And that's a cleansing and a relationship that you, too, can have, if you'll surrender your will and trust Him. I'd encourage you to read the Gospel of John with an open heart and mind, and consider doing that.
I see. So when babies die in the womb of natural causes, we chalk it up to our sinful nature, and that things like birth defects and miscarriages are just the result of our ancestors' mistakes and the overall misfortune of living in a fallen world. But when a woman aborts a pregnancy, the baby is suddenly innocent?
Interesting how the double standard works to pro-lifers' political advantage.
alexh2007, what has the baby--or the woman--done to merit or warrant the death of the child? I can't understand how you can justify the willful and intentional murder of innocent children in the womb by comparing murder to a natural death due to biological defects and failures.
Bob,
People simplify the issue of abortion to an unrealistic degree. They ignore facts such as how a woman often spontaneously aborts implanted embryos several times before successfully carrying a fetus to term -- her body in effect "killing" a fetus that it is not prepared for. They ignore the fact that many aborted embryos are too early in their development to know that they're alive, let alone have the ability to feel pain during the procedure. They ignore situations such as ectopic pregnancies, in which the life of the mother may be at risk unless the pregnancy is terminated -- better to end it carefully and safely than allow the fetus to develop so much that it dies in utero, possibly causing insanguination or sepsis and taking the mother along with it. Sometimes the most responsible choices are also the hardest and ugliest.
I often think of a hypothetical scenario: A thirteen-year-old girl gets raped and subsequently impregnated with a baby she is not ready to have -- financially, physically, or emotionally. She goes to her OB/GYN and learns that due to a rare developmental complication, her baby will certainly die before delivery. The girl has two choices: she can either abort the fetus or let it continue to grow for a few more weeks, only to feel it die inside her, this little baby that was forced upon her and will only add to her already traumatized young life. She decides to abort, and her parents give their consent. It's the hardest choice she's ever had to make, a choice no teenage girl should be faced with, yet she knows it's the most responsible thing to do. As she's walking into the abortion clinic, a crowd of fundamentalist Christian protesters yell that she's going to hell and they call her a murderer. If only they knew how hard it was. If they could only allow her a little dignity as she faces a situation that they could never understand.
I'm sure situations like this one are not unheard of, and it's the reason why abortion should remain safe and legal. HOWEVER, I am firmly against abortion (especially the sick practice of partial-birth abortion) as a method of birth control; if you have an "accident," be an adult and live with your irresponsible behavior. But people aren't like that, and until we live in a world in which every pregnancy is planned -- or at least sufficiently prepared for after the fact -- then abortion will occur more often than it ever should. Also, outlawing abortions does not mean that women will stop having them. The ones who can afford to travel to places where the procedure is still legal will do so, and the ones who don't have the financial means will resort to illegal -- and therefore unregulated and probably dangerous -- abortions. Outlawing abortion will not end it.
This is why I take serious issue with people who unequivocally condemn abortion as murder, who believe it's always wrong and should always be avoided regardless of the circumstances. Life doesn't work that way. Sometimes abortion is the right choice, and since we're men, we have no right to determine that we know what's best for a potential mother like the one I mentioned above. Abortion is a choice that you and I cannot possibly understand, and I believe that for situations in which rape, incest, and the survival/long-term health considerations of the mother are factors, abortion should remain a viable and readily available option.
It's a shame that they don't make placards big enough to adequately explain one's views on abortion, huh?
I think I've beat the dead horse of the difference between spontaneous but flawed biological processes versus intentional abortion enough already; you either get it by now, or refuse to.
The scenario you mentioned of the child who will not make it to life outside the womb is more worthy of consideration. However, consider two things.
(1) Doctors can be wrong, and often have been wrong; I've read several stories about babies that "had no chance," yet lived, and sometimes even were perfectly healthy. Even if didn't believe that child still deserved every chance at life, I wouldn't want to take the chance that the doctor was wrong, and I'd killed by healthy or healthy-enough-to-live child.
(2) Many women elect to go ahead and have the child regardless, and find that despite the pain, it is very therapeutic. Sometimes the baby is stillborn, but they at least get to see their little one and say goodbye. Sometimes the baby lives hours or days, and they at least get to know their baby for a little while before saying goodbye. I know of a young woman in South Dakota this happened to a few years ago, and she wouldn't trade those hours with her child for anything.
To the rape scenario, while the child was conceived in a terrible, criminal act, the child is not the single slightest bit less human or deserving of life. You could hold up a baby conceived in rape and a baby conceived in the most loving marriage, and there wouldn't be the slightest discernable physical or genetic difference. The child would have the same heart, the same brain, and the same soul. And the child would still be of the woman, every bit as if the baby was conceived by a loving husband. I know of a young woman in South Dakota who was raped a few years ago and became pregnant; she kept the baby, and that child is the light of her life now. Even the 13-year-old you mentioned could give up the child for adoption if she and her family don't want to or are incapable of raising it. I also know a woman in South Dakota who aborted her child conceived in rape several years ago...and went through a living hell of regret and guilt until she found God's forgiveness (even now, some regret remains).
Outlawing abortion won't stop all abortions...just as outlawing murder and theft hasn't stopped all murder and theft. But hopefully even you would agree that their illegality is not only a matter of justice, but also serves to deter and reduce the number of such crimes that might otherwise be.
Men have every right to have a say in what happens to the child. A man was involved in conceiving the child, and the child is his offspring, his son or daughter. And if men have no right to issue an opinion or have a voice in the public square about a woman killing her unborn child, then neither do we have a say when she kills her 6-month-old, or her 2-year-old, or when she abuses, neglects or molests her child. If men are somehow rendered imbeciles over the unborn children women have, why do we suddenly become enlightened over the born children she has? For that matter, how can any man say whether any act a woman does is right or wrong, including a cop or a judge--after all, men don't know what it's like to be a woman. See where this is going? Nowhere. The logic leads nowhere.
I think we tend to complicate moral matters, rather than simplify them. (The Bible is pretty simple, really; you can live a perfectly moral life by following 10 simple rules--Jesus even broke it down to two in the New Testament).
We try to complicate things, not because they ARE, but because in doing so (or fooling ourselves into believe they're complicated), we can rationalize ourself some wiggle room to do what we really wanted to do in the first place, but knew was wrong.
God isn't fooled though. And not everyone down here is fooled, either.
You call what I just did complicating/rationalizing a moral matter, whereas I call it observing it realistically with considerations for rare but perfectly possible exceptions. I could keep responding with even more complications that would make abortion an excusable alternative, and you can keep thinking of ways to be right. C'est la vie.
Well, you're obviously pro-life. And I can tell from other articles that you support the war/whatever-this-is in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dare I ask if you support the death penalty as well? Or is life only universally sacred when it's prenatal?
Yes I support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I support the death penalty.
Though I have no doubts you have some twisted logic to rationalize killing innocent unborn children while defending the life of terrorists, murderous dictators and garden-variety murderers, I'll go ahead and briefly explain why I support these things, and why they are consistent with a pro-life philosophy.
We invaded Afghanistan because the murderous thugs running the place gave aid and harbor to other terrorists, including bin Laden, the man behind the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent American civilians. The Bible says in Genesis 9:6 that when someone wrongfully takes human life (i.e. murder), their life will be required of them by human government. So in invading Afghanistan after they refused to turn over the terrorists, we carried out the pro-life edict of Genesis 9:6 which upholds the sanctity of human life by punishing those who wrongfully take it with the strongest possible punishment. We also made sure that country would not be used as a base for more murderous terrorist acts against us or anyone else again; states also have an obligation to protect their innocent civilians from external threats as well.
We invaded Iraq for a number of reasons, perhaps the most pertinent of which was that Saddam violated the cease fire agreement at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War in which he agreed to weapons inspections so we could be sure he wouldn't build WMDs to use against other nations or his own people. We are now about the task of helping that country become stable and strong so that it won't become another terrorist haven like Afghanistan was.
Finally, the death penalty itself. I've really already explained it above, but if you're sincerely interested in why I support the death penalty--and why it's pro-life--I suggest reading this piece I did a couple of years ago: http://69.89.18.38/~dakotavo/200608/Opinion/Editorial/20060821_Editorial_1.html.
"Though I have no doubts you have some twisted logic to rationalize killing innocent unborn children while defending the life of terrorists, murderous dictators and garden-variety murderers, I'll go ahead and briefly explain why I support these things, and why they are consistent with a pro-life philosophy."
Unfortunately, I stopped reading after this paragraph. Someone who can't disagree without insulting my careful explanation of why I am pro-choice and who prejudicially assumes my position on other issues isn't worth my time. If you had the decency to ask, you'd have learned that I do support the death penalty, and that opposing the war doesn't mean that I defend terrorists or murderous dictators -- I don't. But your style is apparently "assume first, ask questions later," so you've effectively shut me off to any further conversation. You're a real piece of work, Bob.
I'm glad you see the logic of the death penalty, though it looks like you're on the wrong side of the war. I didn't miss the mark by much, did I?
I apologize if I misjudged you on the death penalty, but frankly it's surprising that you'd be able to make the distinction of guilt deserving of the ultimate punishment when you seem to completely lack the ability to grasp the innocence of unborn children and the total lack of justification for intentionally ending their lives.
Apology not accepted. You knew what you were doing when you assumed I oppose the death penalty. It's the same thing you do with anyone else who comments here: learn where they stand on one issue, and if it's not something that fits inside your God-fearing conservative worldview, you assume that they're like all the rest of those earth-loving, socialist, baby-killing, sodomite liberals whose every thought and action you get paid to criticize.
We could have had a mutually enlightening conversation. It's a shame, too, that this is the Christian witness you've presented.
I don't get paid a dime. And I don't think there was any enlightenment going on at your end. Someone who can't grasp the innocence of an unborn child has a serious cognitive or spiritual problem, and that's not the only area you've shown a serious lack of discernment about right and wrong.
Based on your defense of killing unborn children, defense of homosexuality, and your mockery of morality and the Bible, I think your estimation of my Christian witness is on less than solid ground to say the least.
I think you've seized on something that in your mind you can use to feel morally superior to those narrow-minded superstitious Christians, and thus dismiss and reject moral condemnation.
That's your choice. God gave you free will, after all. But you can't say you haven't heard the truth.
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