{"id":24199,"date":"2015-01-20T04:00:42","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T11:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=24199"},"modified":"2015-03-19T13:16:57","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T20:16:57","slug":"a-matter-of-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2015\/01\/20\/a-matter-of-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Apology: Abortion, a matter of law?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year I posted on Facebook that I was at the March For Life<\/a>\u00a0in Washington DC and a lively Facebook thread ensued among my friends concerning my pro-life position.\u00a0Last year I wrote a couple of posts<\/a>\u00a0in response, but got distracted and cut short the series (Seriously, I have ADD when it comes to blog series!).<\/p>\n

This year I’ve been writing a new series of posts<\/a>\u00a0on the subject of abortion and today I would like to address one of the comments written\u00a0by\u00a0a friend of mine in the format of a “Quick Apology<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

\"2103MarchForLife\"<\/p>\n

Objection<\/h2>\n

Last year, one of the objections raised was as follows:<\/p>\n

“If something is not illegal it is not democratic to try to prevent people from going about legal (if unpleasant) activities”<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Below I’d like to give a rough outline of my reply.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Response<\/h2>\n

I’m afraid the logic put forward here escapes\u00a0me. It seems that my friend is\u00a0saying that it’s undemocratic to try and make illegal something that’s currently legal!<\/p>\n

Problematic Example #1: Abolition of slavery<\/h3>\n

I wonder if my friend\u00a0would feel the same if the issue being discussed were\u00a0slavery. There was a time when slavery\u00a0was legal. Were the actions of William Wilberforce<\/a> and the other\u00a0abolitionists “not democratic”<\/em> <\/span>when they attempted to\u00a0“prevent people from going about legal (if unpleasant) activities”<\/em>?<\/p>\n

\"Wilberforce\"<\/p>\n

Were Wilberforce and the others\u00a0wrong to try\u00a0to “force their beliefs onto others” concerning\u00a0human equality?<\/p>\n

Problematic Example #2: Roe vs. Wade<\/h3>\n

There is another problem with this objection. At one point in the not-too-distant past, abortion was illegal. When pro-choice<\/strong> advocates fought to overturn this law, were they being “not democratic”<\/em><\/span>?<\/p>\n

\"RoeVsWade\"It seems to me that a double standard is present in the objection. Surely the very fact that we’re in a democracy means that the people should be able to bring about changes in the law<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

Forcing our\u00a0beliefs<\/h3>\n

I’ve heard some people say\u00a0that,\u00a0if abortion were made illegal, it would impose a particular ideology\u00a0on the population, women specifically. However, at the moment, we have a\u00a0different issue, in that\u00a0the law forces its view upon the unborn children<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

The law can’t be neutral<\/strong> on the subject of abortion. It\u00a0is either going to say that the unborn should be protected, or it will deny them that right to life.<\/p>\n

I have a dream too!<\/h3>\n

I’ve heard some people complain about\u00a0pro-life apologetics, saying that they don’t work. That’s not true though, some people do<\/strong> change their minds on this subject<\/a>\u00a0This is the purpose of\u00a0reasoned discussion.<\/p>\n

It is the\u00a0entire point of the pro-life movement to change the minds of those who think that abortion is acceptable in a civilized society. It begins with changed minds and\u00a0will end\u00a0in changed legislation. As noted above, Pro-choice<\/strong> advocates did it in the seventies…pro-life<\/strong> advocates are trying to do the same in 2015.<\/p>\n

Since it was Martin Luther King Day yesterday, I’d like to end with a quotation from the man himself\u00a0which demonstrates the importance of seeking legal reform.\u00a0We begin with changing people’s minds, but we aim to enshrine it in law so that the lives\u00a0of the unborn will be\u00a0protected…<\/p>\n

\"MLK\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year I posted on Facebook that I was at the March For Life\u00a0in Washington DC and a lively Facebook thread ensued among my friends concerning my pro-life position.\u00a0Last year I wrote a couple of posts\u00a0in response, but got distracted and cut short the series (Seriously, I have ADD when it comes to blog series!). This year I’ve been writing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[232,2969,2486,2985,2986,1728,1601],"class_list":["post-24199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","tag-abortion","tag-featured","tag-march-for-life-2014","tag-march-for-life-2015","tag-martin-luther-king","tag-pro-choice","tag-pro-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/FeaturedLaw.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24199"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56214,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24199\/revisions\/56214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}