Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

The Governor of Virginia: Killing Babies is OK by Me

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Yesterday two stories out of Virginia went viral.  In the first the Democrat sponsor of an “abortion” bill confirmed that she intends to allow the babies to be killed up to the moment of birth.  See here.

You can read the text of the bill in this article.  Under the proposal a baby could be killed up to the moment of birth if a doctor says it would help the woman’s MENTAL health.  Depressed that you are about to have a baby?  Well, let’s kill it.

The second story is about the Virginia governor’s foray into apologetics for killing little babies.  (When I first wrote this I almost wrote “infanticide.”  I am not going to use that word anymore.  It is sterile and academic.  Let’s call it what it is – killing little babies)  The governor did not even attempt to make a pretense that he would stop the killing of babies if they somehow escaped their mother’s wombs. 

Yesterday O’Leary for the UD News desk brought this story to my attention.  It is about a plot among students in the next state south (North Carolina for the geographically impaired) to go full Columbine on their school.

I would bet one billion dollars that if a school shooting occurred in Virginia today, Governor Northam would say something like “I am shocked and dismayed by these killings.”  And I am equally sure he would be completely blind to the disconnect between what he said today in response to the shootings and what he said yesterday in response to the pending legislation. 

Comments
Is there a reason why Darwin and his cronies are almost never accused of white privilege? I have read several biographies about Darwin. There is no doubt that he was white, Anglo-Saxon and privileged-- very privileged. But for some reason he virtually gets a free pass in these discussions. Yet a closer scrutiny of his writings and thinking are a cause for concern.
Darwin clearly believed that natural selection working on different populations produced “higher” and “lower” races with different mental capacities. Hence, according to Darwinian theory, one should expect to find races with unequal capacities. This expectation of Darwinian theory helped fuel scientific racism for decades and provided a research agenda for a number of leading evolutionary biologists, most notably National Academy of Sciences’ member Charles Davenport, one of the founding fathers of modern genetics. The Darwinian connection to the eugenics movement was even more direct. Darwin thought that human beings and their capacities only arose through a merciless process of natural selection that ruthlessly exterminated the weak and the inferior. But according to Darwin, civilized societies did their best to counteract natural selection and preserve those nature would have killed off. Darwin thought that this counteracting of natural selection had serious negative consequences for the future of the human race. As he put it, “excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” Given this predicament, one had two choices as a Darwinist: advocate a return to the law of the jungle in human society, or try to institute a “kinder, gentler” form of selection through science. The latter option was the one championed by eugenists because they thought it was more humane than the first option, but both options grew out of a thoroughly Darwinian rationale. [emphasis added]
https://evolutionnews.org/2010/11/darwin_racism_and_eugenics_in_/ In other words, according to a strict reading of Darwin the reason that blacks do not excel at mathematics is that they are from an inferior race not because of any so-called oppression. In the early 20th century Darwin’s theory became the basis of enlightened scientific public policy in the United States, Great Britain and Germany. In the U.S. the eugenics movement led to laws which led to forced sterilizations of so called undesirables, people with low IQ’s or other disabilities. In the 1930’s and 40’s German society took the idea of eugenics much further with tragic results. Eugenics was one of the primary moral causes of progressive “scientifically” enlightened elites in the early twentieth century. This should give us some pause. How can we be sure that so called progressive elitism isn’t making the same kind of mistake in the 21st Century? The dirty little secret that never gets discussed is that Eugenics never really went away. It just went into hiding only to be re-labelled and re-emerge in the pro-abortion movement.
According to [a recent] CDC report, the rate of abortion among African-American women is far higher than among white American women. While black women make up only six percent of the U.S. population, they account for 35 percent of abortions reported… Pro-life advocates have long argued that the abortion industry specifically targets minorities, highlighting the movement's racist roots. Planned Parenthood founder and eugenics advocate Margaret Sanger started “The Negro Project” in 1939 to thwart the population growth of the poor and minorities, or, as Sanger put it, to discourage “the defective and diseased elements of humanity” from their “reckless and irresponsible swarming and spawning.” Sanger, a Darwinist, enlisted black ministers to convince minorities to use contraceptives, explaining, "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out the idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”
Ironically, Sanger is someone who is still celebrated by the secular progressive left. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/campaigns/ppfa-margaret-sanger-award-winners Notice, who won the prestigious Margaret Sanger Award in 2009 and who else won it in 2014. These are the same people, when it is politically expedient, who lecture us about racism which, when they can score some political points, they suddenly see everywhere and in everything-- even in a traditionally apolitical subject like math. Only a fool would take their nonsense seriously but they apparently really do.john_a_designer
February 2, 2019
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Video, for reference, on pregnancy week by week: https://uncommondescent.com/laws/reference-pregnancy-week-by-week/kairosfocus
February 2, 2019
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F/N: Fetal development, week by week: https://www.babycenter.com/fetal-development-week-by-week KFkairosfocus
February 2, 2019
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Vivid, at this stage, it seems one needs to monitor the dominant news-views trends to minimise the harm from their media amplification of agit prop, rather than look to them for responsible, honest, credible reporting. The direct implication is radical undermining of the foundations of a sustainable democratic government system. Which has ruinous consequences. Where also, we see the implications of the abortion agenda and other linked things becoming ever more plain. But, are there enough people awake to the perils to make a difference? When the ship of state has fallen to the factions of folly, it is very hard to return to sound navigation. See Ac 27 for a study in miniature. KF PS: Where can we find honest, reasonably comprehensive news now?kairosfocus
February 2, 2019
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Our media is so dishonest. Anderson Cooper is trying to deceive his viewers that that the Virgina Governor is a Republican by putting an R after his name in com-box. So dishonest Vividvividbleau
February 2, 2019
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Breaking news (2/1/19): Several top democrats are calling for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to resign but not for his statements about late term abortion or infanticide. Rather it’s for a racist photo which he appeared in from his 1984 medical school yearbook page. As far as his favoring infanticide the Democratic Party and the mainstream media continue to give him a complete pass on that. As a matter of fact CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS (according to Fox) have given zero minutes of coverage about the controversy concerning his position on late term abortion and infanticide.john_a_designer
February 1, 2019
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Ed George, the honest OB/GYNs agree 100% with you.OldArmy94
February 1, 2019
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The idea of aborting a viable fetus is appalling. Even the argument that the mother's life is at serious risk doesn't cut it because I can't se that killing and removing the baby is any less risky than removing the baby and caring for it.Ed George
February 1, 2019
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StephenB and Heartlander, your comments don’t really answer my question. Which is understandable because I didn’t really pose it as a question. In a country where there are no legal restrictions on late term abortion, why are they almost never performed?
I answered your question very clearly, though you did a poor job of expressing it. Here is your challenge: [a] Since it is just as morally offensive to kill a tiny baby as a well-developed baby, [b] why do people protest more vehemently when a well-developed baby is aborted? I provided the answer. Apparently, you didn't like the answer because you were hoping that there was no answer. Or perhaps you don't know how to express yourself.StephenB
February 1, 2019
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Jonah Goldberg over at NR On-line makes an excellent point concerning the most recent flare up in the on-going (and never ending) abortion debate.
“If you don’t think late-term, post-viability abortions are morally troubling, you might want to ask yourself why we are one of only seven countries in the world that allow elective abortions after 20 weeks. It’s unclear how many countries allow abortion at 40 weeks, mid-delivery, but it’s possible that the U.S. and North Korea would be the only members of that club. I’m all in favor of debating such details, but what bothers me about these abortion controversies is the way utilitarian arguments are given the presumption of moral superiority. In almost every other sphere of debate where progressives claim the moral high ground, they are categorical. “If it saves just one life, it’s worth it,” they say about gun control, health-care reform, police abuse, etc. Imagine if I were to argue that since lynchings are so rare, we don’t really need strict laws against lynching. Infanticide, like racism, murder, and rape, is a moral category. It’s not less evil if it’s rare. It is rare — thank God — because we’ve agreed to treat it as evil.”[emphasis added]
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/virginia-abortion-bill-controversy-moral-low-ground/john_a_designer
February 1, 2019
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Brother Brian:
In a country where there are no legal restrictions on late term abortion, why are they almost never performed?
Perhaps by then women realize it is child and not a choice.ET
February 1, 2019
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Brother Brian:
If the right to life is absolute, regardless of stage of development, why all the effort to use these examples?
Well, Brian, if you hadn't quote-mined my response earlier the answer was there: Abortionists, those anti-lifers, say the fetus isn’t a human cuz of the lack of brain activity an a bunch of other arbitrary nonsense. Late term abortions fly in the face of their original redefinition. They keep moving the goalposts to suit their needs.ET
February 1, 2019
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StephenB and Heartlander, your comments don't really answer my question. Which is understandable because I didn't really pose it as a question. In a country where there are no legal restrictions on late term abortion, why are they almost never performed?Brother Brian
February 1, 2019
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Brother Brian
Much hyperbole, but nobody has explained why they are using baby examples of aborting a baby at birth....
The reason should be evident. Many people are stupid enough to believe that a six-week-old fetus is not a human being, so they may not understand that aborting a baby at that stage of development is murder. On the other hand, very few people are stupid enough to believe that a nine-month-old fetus is not a human being, so almost everyone understands that abortion at that stage of development is murder. Thus, most who support late-term abortions do so out of a callous disregard for human life, not ignorance.StephenB
January 31, 2019
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OK, if you don’t agree with the law - again your statement coming into this discussion - ”Then it is a good thing that we have decided to establish laws to place limits on what is permitted.“ - is purely uniformed from the beginning.Heartlander
January 31, 2019
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No. But Canada has no prohibition on abortion up until the moment of birth. Yet late term abortions are almost non-existent.Brother Brian
January 31, 2019
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BB - OK, maybe we can start here - since this post is dealing with the new law allowing late term abortion up until birth - do you agree with this new limit?Heartlander
January 31, 2019
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Much hyperbole, but nobody has explained why they are using examples of aborting a baby at birth, or sometime before it is 18. If the right to life is absolute, regardless of stage of development, why all the effort to use these examples? Is it possible that this is being done because, fundamentally, most people don’t see an early fetus as having the same rights?Brother Brian
January 31, 2019
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Brother Brian apparently believes that he is making some type of moral argument that is logically consistent when he states that "the right to life depends on the state of development of the fetus". Yet, Brother Brian fails to realize that, as a Darwinist, he has given up any right to make any type of moral argument whatsoever. The amorality inherent within the atheistic materialism that undergirds Brother Brian's Darwinian worldview allows for no good nor evil, just blind pitiless indifference.
“The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” - Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
The only ‘morality’ that matters within Darwinian reasoning is ‘survival of the fittest’. As I said the other day, for crying out loud, if eating aborted babies gave us a survival advantage then on Darwinian reasoning would that would be a ‘good’ thing. Any ‘antiquated’ moral objection to such an abhorrent notion as eating aborted babies is held to be subjective and ‘illusory’ on a Darwinian view. There is literally nothing within Darwinian reasoning to say that it is morally bad to do such a morally abhorrent thing! In short, Brother Brian has disingenuously stolen from Christian morality in order to try to provide faux moral support for the larger objective of aborting unborn babies without restriction. Brother Brian, even though his Darwinian worldview does not allow for altruistic morality of any sort, feels free to debate the finer moral details of exactly when the fetus is legally entitled to the right to life. This is where it becomes humorously, and irresolvably, problematic for the Darwinist. Legally in the United States, the right to life is granted to anyone who is granted the legal status of being a 'person'.
Unborn children as constitutional persons. - 2010 Excerpt: In Roe v. Wade, the state of Texas argued that "the fetus is a 'person' within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." To which Justice Harry Blackmun responded, "If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment." However, Justice Blackmun then came to the conclusion "that the word 'person,' as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn." In this article, it is argued that unborn children are indeed "persons" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20443281
And yet the atheist's Darwinian worldview is unable to ground the concept of 'personhood':
“There is no self in, around, or as part of anyone’s body. There can’t be. So there really isn’t any enduring self that ever could wake up morning after morning worrying about why it should bother getting out of bed. The self is just another illusion, like the illusion that thought is about stuff or that we carry around plans and purposes that give meaning to what our body does. Every morning’s introspectively fantasized self is a new one, remarkably similar to the one that consciousness ceased fantasizing when we fell sleep sometime the night before. Whatever purpose yesterday’s self thought it contrived to set the alarm last night, today’s newly fictionalized self is not identical to yesterday’s. It’s on its own, having to deal with the whole problem of why to bother getting out of bed all over again.” – A.Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, ch.10 “that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick – “The Astonishing Hypothesis” 1994 The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness By STEVEN PINKER - Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 Part II THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL Another startling conclusion from the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there's an executive "I" that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion. http://www.academia.edu/2794859/The_Brain_The_Mystery_of_Consciousness “(Daniel) Dennett concludes, ‘nobody is conscious … we are all zombies’.” J.W. SCHOOLER & C.A. SCHREIBER – Experience, Meta-consciousness, and the Paradox of Introspection – 2004
Thus in a technical legal sense, it is perfectly legal to kill Darwinists since their worldview denies that they really exist as real persons, thus forsaking any legal 'right to life' that they are granted as persons. :) Darwinists may not think this turn of events very funny, but I find it very funny indeed. All kidding aside, since only Theism can ground morality and personhood, then it is obvious that we must turn to Theology to see when the status of personhood is granted by God. And though many liberal Theologians have tried to argue otherwise, the Bible is pretty clear that personhood is granted even prior to the Babies development in the womb:
Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;,,"
And indeed, we now even have empirical evidence of immaterial information coming into the developing embryo 'from outside space-time' to support this Theistic claim that God formed each of us in our mother's womb:
Darwinism vs Biological Form https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyNzNPgjM4w Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology - video https://youtu.be/LHdD2Am1g5Y
Verses:
Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul? Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
bornagain77
January 31, 2019
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Well, BB, here's the problem: Just who decides what is batsh@$ crazy? Why should we honor their decision?anthropic
January 31, 2019
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Brother Brian- My reasoning is up to the age of 18 you are supposedly still under the dominion of your parents. The parents being responsible from conception until 18. And what do you care about arguments, anyway?ET
January 31, 2019
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ET
Because why stop there? Why not make it legal until the kid is 18?
Or 65. If you are going to make an argument, might I suggest that you make one that isn’t batsh@$ crazy?Brother Brian
January 31, 2019
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BB - You misunderstand - I said nothing about my views ‘only’ being against late term abortion. That is not the case. Now if you (BB) are against abortion and see the new laws allowing for killing at any time up until birth - why would you state -”Then it is a good thing that we have decided to establish laws to place limits on what is permitted.“ ?Heartlander
January 31, 2019
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Brother Brian:
Why the repeated reference to abortions at the time of crowning?
Because why stop there? Why not make it legal until the kid is 18? But I digress. Abortionists, those anti-lifers, say the fetus isn't a human cuz of the lack of brain activity an a bunch of other arbitrary nonsense. Late term abortions fly in the face of their redefinition.ET
January 31, 2019
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Heartlander, I fail to see your point. According to your view, and that of many here, the life of a one day old fetus is just as valuable as that of a baby being born. Why the repeated reference to abortions at the time of crowning? Is this a subconscious admission that maybe the right to life depends on the state of development of the fetus?Brother Brian
January 31, 2019
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BB - In response to a post discussing laws allowing for the life of a human fetus to be killed up until birth (and even after), you reply - ”Then it is a good thing that we have decided to establish laws to place limits on what is permitted.“ The Dostoevsky quote applies...Heartlander
January 31, 2019
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They did that for "the Purge". Laws are only as good as the people who make them, the people who enforce them and the people who will care they exist.ET
January 31, 2019
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Then it is a good thing that we have decided to establish laws to place limits on what is permitted.Brother Brian
January 31, 2019
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"If God does not exist, everything is permitted." Dostoevskyanthropic
January 31, 2019
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It is COMMON in abortion clinics for the abortionist to ACCIDENTALLY produce a live baby during a late term abortion. They take breathes. They cry. They struggle to find warmth. They RESIST being executed. But the baby is ALWAYS killed. "The lady is paying for a dead baby. I'm gonna give her a dead baby." Read any of the details about Gosnell in Philadelphia. I think I read he was "murdered" (executed?) in prison after having been convicted of Murder after one of the MOTHERS died. Abortion is a VERY dangerous procedure. Oh, and on the whole Constant Morality thing. Look up "Hippocratic Oath" on Wikipedia. From its BEGINNING in Ancient Greece 2,000 years ago, the new doctor was to swear "Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion." And so American doctors continued to swear up until the late 20th century. But as abortion became MORALLY acceptable, and profitable to doctors, the "not give to a woman" sentence was DROPPED from the Oath as sworn in the US. Now if THAT ain't a change to Morality, I don't know what is.vmahuna
January 31, 2019
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