Human Rights

“What about gay fetuses?” Not exactly the gotcha pro-aborts are looking for

The Facebook group Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice Debate Forum recently posted the following image of a T-shirt asking, “If the fetus you save is gay, will you still fight for its rights?”

I’m sure the liberal activist who thought that one up feels mighty clever, as do many satisfied bumper-sticker shoppers. Unfortunately, though, the question is too clever for its own good, as thinking about it objectively for more than ten seconds not only serves to reinforce the pro-life position, but gives those genuinely concerned about gay rights a powerful incentive to oppose abortion.

The pro-lifer’s answer is easy: of course we will! The whole point of our movement is that every person is equally valuable and equally deserving of protection, and that being alive and human are the only proper criteria for deciding whether someone has rights. To suggest we’d throw that out the window when it comes to saving people we allegedly dislike is absurd. If pro-lifers were that heartless and shallow, then why would we be active at all, considering the babies pro-choicers have will likely be raised to also favor legal abortion? Aren’t the very people we want to save composed largely of future foes?

This talking point is entirely contingent upon another common left-wing smear: the idea that social conservatives and traditional Christians are homophobic. While a small fringe of anti-gay bigots sadly exists in this country, the vast majority of homophobia cries are instead referring to same-sex marriage opposition. But this is another demagogic attempt to stigmatize dissent from liberal orthodoxy. It’s not bigoted at all to believe that marriage offers something unique and necessary to children and society that would be impaired by redefining it.

And even among those who favor limiting marriage to monogamous man-woman unions, most of us – even those as uncompromisingly right-wing as Dr. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family – have no problem guaranteeing gay Americans’ actual rights, such as hospital visitation, joint property ownership, power of attorney, bereavement leave, etc. The suggestion that it would even occur to us to deny gays their right to life in the womb is unfathomable.

In fact, the prospect of identifying “gay genes” prenatally only reinforces the horror of abortion. First, doesn’t the mere possibility of fetuses even having characteristics like sexual orientation only underscore their humanity?

Second, it highlights some of the truly monstrous purposes abortion can serve. Just as with this summer’s sex-selection abortion debacle, the logic of abortion on demand necessarily entails a fundamental right to kill one’s child because he or she belongs to any given group of so-called “undesirables.” If abortion is inviolable “reproductive freedom,” and if fetuses have no rights, then weeding out the gay ones is just as permissible as aborting because your contraception failed. Gay-friendly abortion fans can finger-wave all they want at homophobic exercises of “choice,” but they have no logical consistency or moral high ground from which to stop them.

We do. So the next time you encounter someone looking to strut the rapier wit and moral self-righteousness he or she just got off a T-shirt, don’t let yourself get caught playing defense. Truth has nothing to fear.

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  • esperanza139

    At the same time, to sexualize a baby in the womb is horrific and smites at Kinseyan rhetoric:

    http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/duke/041202

  • http://twitter.com/AbortionDebate Abortion Debater

    I love pointing out that there is also a group called the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians (plagal.org).

  • Ward Ricker

    Yes. My answer is “Of course!” if I were presented with such a message. There are, however, many anti-abortion/pro-life organizations and websites (including at least one well-known news site) that take a very anti-gay position. I am glad that Live Action News does not do that. Thank you.

    One other point that I would like to make, though. You say that a left-wing smear is that “social conservatives and traditional Christians are homophobic”, implying that we who oppose abortion are social conservatives and/or traditional Christians. I would certainly not wish to be considered to be either one of these. It is support of abortion that is (arguably) an ultra-conservative position — we who oppose it are taking a liberal position. (Although I won’t take the time to argue that here.) And when I used to consider myself to be a Christian I didn’t give a rat’s-hind-end about abortion. It is only when I moved to a more secular viewpoint that the horror of abortion became clear to me. I hope that in the future you will not try to paint opposition to abortion as either conservative or Christian. Abortion is a human rights issue – pure and simple. Every liberal or non-Christian should oppose such violence just as much as anyone else.

    • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

      Really? I’m not aware of pro-life groups or sites that espouse genuine bigotry toward gays.

      And while I’m glad whenever non-Christians and non-conservatives stand for life, the fact remains that opposing abortion, whatever else it may be, is a core conclusion of Christian principles and a major conservative political stance. The conservative movement is the right to life’s most natural home in American politics – it certainly isn’t welcome on the Left or among libertarians.

      • Ward Ricker

        Well, I am happy to report that I am having great difficulty finding many websites that show gay bigotry. However, americanrtl.org certainly doesn’t sound very gay friendly when it “accuses” Mitt Romney of being “pro-homosexual” on its home page. The news site that I was thinking of when I wrote this was http://www.lifesitenews.com, which always combines news about homosexuality with news about abortion issues. Right now it seems rather tame compared to what I have usually encountered there, but if you go to their page on “Homosexuality” (http://www.lifesitenews.com/article/topic/homosexuality/) there is a clear anti-gay tone. No, they don’t say “Gays are evil, horrible people,” but the idea that gays are “sinful” and that their lifestyle isn’t as “good” as heterosexuals’ is clear as you read the articles. (And once again I praise Live Action News for not following their example.)
        However, these are the only two sites that I am finding, in spite of my memory telling me there were many more, so my characterization of “many” websites/organizations be anti-gay appears to be incorrect. My apologies! (And I will be happy to report this to anyone does accuse us of being anti-gay.)
        I would contest your statement, though, that the conservative movement is the natural home for right to lifers. The most basic definition of liberal vs. conservative, at least in our society, is, I believe, that liberals think it is the responsibility of government to take care of those who are weak and disadvantaged, while it is the conservative view that people should “stand on their own two feet” and not expect a “government handout”. It is this supposed concern for the weak and disadvantaged that should lead to liberals caring for the unborn, whereas conservatives would naturally tend to not let anything get in the way of personal advancement and fortune, and hence would be more likely to be in favor of abortion. Of course, that is not how it is in actuality in our society – somehow the conservatives have been more ready to take up the cause of the unborn. But it really should be us liberals that are doing so. (I say “us” since I consider myself to be closer to liberal than to conservative, although I don’t feel that either word does very well at describing me.)
        And as far as Christian core values, there are, of course, many out there who consider themselves Christian who would disagree with you. The Bible, as I’m sure you know does not contain the word “abortion” and doesn’t seem to mention it directly, except perhaps in Numbers 5:11-31 where God seems to be commanding the priest to cause an abortion, although this is probably subject to interpretation (as the Bible always seems to be).
        At any rate, let us hope that the right to life viewpoint finds a solid home among both liberals and conservatives, both Christians and non-Christians, and among both straights and gays – and soon for the sake of those who are dying.

        • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

          American RTL is pretty small potatoes in the pro-life movement, especially considering the whole schtick of their Pro-Life Profiles site is to tear down pretty much any pro-life politician or personality who isn’t them as insufficiently pure. As for LifeSiteNews, there’s a difference between treating homosexual people badly and believing homosexual conduct to violate one’s religious values. LSN talks about a whole range of sins, including sexual sins gay & straight alike, and I’m sure they believe in humble recognition that none of us are without sin, and that all people deserve love and dignity regardless.

          I agree that liberal rhetoric *should* lead to protecting the unborn, but that’s not the real difference between liberals and conservatives. Conservatism is all about conserving the essentials of America’s Founding, particularly the notion of unalienable rights to life, liberty, and property, so the unborn’s right to life is a direct outgrowth of core conservative principles. It’s no coincidence that most conservatives and Republicans are pro-life, and the reason your theory that conservatives should be pro-choice because they “tend to not let anything get in the way of personal advancement and fortune” doesn’t pan out is because that’s not what conservatism is even remotely about. It’s a cliched stereotype, nothing more. Liberalism, meanwhile, clearly rejects the right to life, as is evident in just how widely they’ve embraced the “right to choose.”

          Lastly, no truly substantive, intellectually-honest reading of the Bible can conclude anything other than that abortion is a grave sin in God’s eyes. http://liveactionnews.org/opinion/even-the-devil-can-quote-scripture-biblical-arguments-for-abortion/

          • Detroiter327

            The key word here is “dignity”. You cannot claim to treat any group of people with dignity when you publicly espouse that they should not be allowed around children, or when you bemoan members of that group being elected into positions of power. Their comment policy is particularly telling. They ask for all comments to be “thoughtful and respectful”. They then leave up comments calling gay people products of the devil, child molesters, AIDS infested sinners, etc. By leaving these comments up they are showing what they define to be respectful treatment of gay people.

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            Have they written that gays shouldn’t be allowed around children, or that being gay is sufficient grounds for keeping someone out of office?

            As for their comment moderating, I imagine there’s plenty of pretty nasty stuff in the other direction that gets left up. I think lots of sites tend to differentiate between general invective and disrespecting specific commenters.

          • Detroiter327

            1. They have published several articles about not allowing gay people to adopt children. They claim over and over again that having a gay parent is “unsafe” and that it “does violence to children”. They have also written pieces about their outrage of gay teachers in schools, gay Boy or Girl scout leaders, and how to “protect” your children from gay influence. On top of all that they continuously attempt to prove a link between homosexuality and pedophilia! For evidence please reference almost anything on the site regarding homosexuality by Peter Baklinski.
            2. Please note I said positions of power, just to be clear I was not referring to a political office. Every now and then, when a gay man or lesbian becomes the head of a major organization they attempt to “out” the person to their readers. Not sure what their intention is, but we can both agree that its not a celebratory announcement.

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            Most conservatives critical of gay adoption (me included) don’t believe the issue is that a gay father is likely to be a worse father than a straight man, but that children suffer from the absence of either sex in their parents. No father can be a mother, and no mother can be a father. See my “children” link in the article for more. Most of the other things you mention aren’t about dehumanizing gays, but on preserving parents’ rights to decide what kind of sexual ethos and examples they want set for their children.

          • Detroiter327

            http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pedophilia-and-incest-justified-by-the-homosexuality-mindset

            “A grown man who loves children, according to the homosexual mindset, ought to be able to have sexual relations with those children, simply because he is inclined to them and has loving feelings towards them.” The title of that article is
            Pedophilia and Incest: justified by the homosexuality mindset?
            http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/lgbttiqq2s-how-many-more-letters-do-we-need

            Here he goes on to say that homosexuality can pave the way for pedophiles and bestiality lovers.

            Would you like me to find more examples? Linking a gay person to pedophilia and bestiality is about as dehumanizing as you can get . And those are from opinion pieces written by one of their regular staff members. I also appreciate your opinion on adoption, but we are discussing the articles on Lifesitenews. Claiming that harm and violence are the result of a gay couple adopting is a far cry from the politically correct picture you are attempting to paint.

          • Detroiter327

            Found this one today! However, through the guise of “homosexual marriage,” criminals working behind the scenes mean to shut down the Church, destroy the family, and make your children a prey. This, my friends, is ungodly and un-American. http://www.lifesitenews.com/blog/mask-off-canadians-now-warning-americans-about-threat-of-gay-marriage

          • Detroiter327

            http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/romney-the-boy-scouts-should-admit-homosexuals

            Fischer said Romney’s position had more serious defects. “Social
            research has revealed that homosexuals sexually offend against minors at exaggerated rates.”

            “In fact, according to research published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, they are ten times more likely to molest children than heterosexual men,” he said. “Gov. Romney’s position, if adopted by the BSA, would put the sexual innocence of untold numbers of young boys at risk.”

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            Fischer is a crank, and LSN should have found an additional quote from more mainstream social conservatives than he and Buchanan, but it’s a news story about Romney’s remark and reaction to it, not LSN claiming the average gay scoutmaster is a potential pedophile.

      • Detroiter327

        Lifesitenews.com,

  • Laura M

    they don’t even know what to say anymore…

  • Josephine

    If a gay gene were actually proven to exist, I would most certainly still defend any unborn gays. Keep in mind, though, the left doesn’t actually like gay people. They always exploit crimes against gays to further their agenda. Remember that gay student that killed himself after his roommates filmed him with another guy? It became a gay issue to the left, rather than a privacy and respect issue. The right doesn’t hate gay people; the majority of us just don’t support their lifestyle. FYI: the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that gays must be loved, but the lifestyle must be discouraged.

    • Ward Ricker

      I suppose the Catholic Church is free to take whatever stand it wishes in this regard. But as people who oppose abortion, we should not be trying to discourage gays, but rather embrace them (ie, we should “support their lifestyle”). As I mentioned in my response to the previous comment, gays do not get pregnant (or cause pregnancies – at least not through gay relationships), and therefore will not end up killing a preborn child. Perhaps we should actively promote homosexuality! Particularly in a world with 7 billion people and growing. Anything we can do to stop the explosion of population (short of killing people, of course) should be encouraged.

      At any rate, as long as anti-abortionists/pro-lifers take a negative attitude toward gays, as many organizations/websites do, we will continue to alienate many people that we need to support our cause. Let’s be welcoming and inviting and supportive of all, even if their lifestyle is different from ours.

      • Laura M

        “But as people who oppose abortion, we should not be trying to discourage gays, but rather embrace them (ie, we should “support their lifestyle”)” that makes absolutely no sense. So according to you we have to be ok with anything anyone does in order to further the pro-life cause?

        • Ward Ricker

          I don’t understand why you don’t think it makes sense. No, we shouldn’t be okay with anything anyone does, but we should be doing all that we can to help the unborn. And we will do more for them by accepting peace-loving people who are harming no one, than by excluding them. You care about the unborn, but put down gays (or at least their “lifestyle”). People on the other side support gay rights (frequently), but don’t care about the unborn. It’s all the same. Everyone picking the group of people that they care about and to heck with the others. When people see that we are loving, accepting people who respect and encourage those who are already walking around, they will be far more willing to listen to us when we say that we need to care for the unborn. If we look down on others as if they are sinful or inferior, people will not be able to believe that we can love that tiny little one that we haven’t even met yet.

          • Dolce

            I am all for accepting people – but promoting the gay lifestyle as a means of population control? That is just disgusting. It is disrespectful of gay people, who cannot control who they love, and it is disrespectful of straight people, who also cannot control who they love. It is disrespectful of people in general, and to suggest the solution to our apparent inability to control our urge to breed is to replace whatever orientation we have with a sexual relationship that may or may not be satisfying for the people involved is ridiculous. And what of gay couples who wish to have children who are at least genetically related to one of the partners? They are, in fact, causing and/or getting pregnant.

            You of course have every right to think that promoting a gay lifestyle to those of us who just aren’t gay is a solution to our environmental crisis. But a more logical approach, if you truly are so worried about our impact on this world, would be to advocate for science and sustainable consumption and overall, less consumption. After all, we in the developed world live off of far more than we need.

            In the meantime, continue to be accepting of everyone, the unborn and gays, for who they are – people. That in itself is a great philosophy to live by.

          • Ward Ricker

            Dolce, please. Did you honestly think that I was suggesting we go out and try to promote a gay lifestyle? I am no more interested in promoting a gay lifestyle among heterosexuals than I am in promoting a heterosexual lifestyle among gays. Just let everyone be who they are, and accept and welcome them as they are. There is nothing “sinful” or “corrupt” about anyone’s sexual orientation. People are who they are, and that’s all wonderful and good, as long as they are not doing things to hurt others (like killing preborns, for instance).

            I was merely trying to make a point. If we were to look at the issue of gay rights from the perspective of opposing the killing of preborns, it would naturally lead us to be in favor of “gayness”, since gay relationships never produce pregnancies and therefore will never result in abortions. (For that matter, I can only wonder how many gay/lesbian people have ended up having heterosexual relationships because of the stigma that has been attached to homosexuality, and as a result have ended up in unwanted pregnancies that have been terminated by abortion because the person involved had no interest in keeping that partner and certainly didn’t want to end up pregnant.) And when the people we are trying to get our message across to no longer think that we look down on people who are gay as if they are somehow “deficient” or “defective” they will be far more likely to listen to our message and believe that it comes from people who actually care about others.

            And yes, you are correct. Overconsumption is the other side of the coin to overpopulation. These two dynamics are leading us to the brink of disaster. With 7 billion people already on this earth and those in poorer countries longing to live the lifestyle that we in the more consumptive countries live, if we don’t take drastic steps to bring both of these forces quickly under control we will be looking at a worldwide catastrophe that will even make abortion look a minor problem!

    • Bridget

      Very strong points.:)

  • http://twitter.com/MarauderTheSN Marauder

    I’m bisexual, so the whole “OMG, what are you going to do if the baby is GAY, HMMMM?” thing always sort of makes me laugh. Personally, I sort of hope one or more of my future children will be GLBT because I think my husband and I would make great parents for a GLBT kid. (Before somebody throws a fit, this means I’ll be happy to get a GLBT kid, not that I’m going to “make my kids gay” or something equally ridiculous.)

    I really, really wish people would quit talking about “abortion and gay marriage” in one phrase together, as though A) people who feel a certain way about one always feel a certain way about the other and B) they’re somehow morally equivalent. No matter how you feel about GLBT stuff, it’s not on the same level as purposely ending the innocent life of a human being. (Also, people are gay, relationships are not. My husband and I aren’t “a straight couple” because I’m not straight, anymore than you can be “a black couple” if only one of you is black.)

    • Ward Ricker

      Thanks, Marauder. Good point about “abortion and gay marriage”. I always rather cringe when they throw those together. Two completely different things. (Other than the fact that a gay marriage will never result in an abortion. Gays are our natural allies. We should embrace them.)

      And I suspect you will make a great parent, no matter whether your child is straight or gay.

  • http://twitter.com/Astraspider Astraspider

    Well, the gay activists I’ve known have always put a premium on irreverence over the kind of clockwork logical consistencies Calvin is writing himself into a pretzel to espouse.

    But, hey, I’ll throw my hat (or shirt) into the ring for a different slogan: “If the fetus you save ends up on death row, will you still fight for his rights?”

    I know if you’re the Pope, the answer is yes. Notsomuch if you’re the average American “pro-life” Catholic.

    • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

      Hey look, Astraspider’s peddling another (entirely irrelevant) talking point, despite having been present during its previous debunkings! But she also said something incoherent about logical pretzels, so I guess that’s an adequate substitute for intelligent thought about the subject at hand.

      The idea that killing innocent babies as a judicially-codified “right” is even in the same moral universe as killing a convicted murder after extensive investigation, trial and appeal really is Onion-caliber logic and moral seriousness.

      • http://twitter.com/Astraspider Astraspider

        This is it’s relevance: it’s easy for pro-life bloviators to look at this shirt and build (yet another) straw man out of it. Even Michele Bachmann (who runs “pray the gay away” conversion centers in MN) would advocate for birthing gay babies. So you have to see the shirt as just an irreverent piece of agitprop. A troll of conservative Christians, so-to-speak, and apparently it worked.

        Not so easy (as Calvin demonstrates) to find any Christian love for humans that have gone on to grow up to make bad decisions, be abusive, be the victims of abuse, and get enmeshed in an imperfect legal system (no matter how much Calvin might vouch for its fairness, there are inequities baked into the capital punishment regime. It’s, frankly, hypocritical that Calvin won’t trust government to come anywhere near health care, but he puts so much faith in it to decide who deserves to die at the hands of the government).

        It’s a cowardly kind of Christian love of Life that can only muster it for the blank slate of a fetus, who has no capacity to make decisions, good, bad, or criminal.

        • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

          Nope. It’s no straw man to point out that when you people elevate the murder of innocent people to the level of “reproductive freedom,” you’re also giving bigots a potent new way to keep the objects of their prejudice out of the world, and you have no logically or morally consistent standing from which to protect them. Heck, this summer liberals proved they have no interest in protecting baby girls (and yes, I remember your spin on that subject, so save it); what chance do gays have?

          “Not so easy (as Calvin demonstrates) to find any Christian love for humans that have gone on to grow up to make bad decisions, be abusive, be the victims of abuse, and get enmeshed in an imperfect legal system”

          Hey, speaking of straw men…..

          “there are inequities baked into the capital punishment regime.”

          Lefty conspiracy theories notwithstanding, to judge the merits of capital punishment based on instances where the system fails is no more honest than it would be to judge all abortions by the sanitary conditions of Kermit Gosnell’s establishment.

          “It’s, frankly, hypocritical that Calvin won’t trust government to come anywhere near health care, but he puts so much faith in it to decide who deserves to die at the hands of the government”

          *sigh* This, along with the willful ignorance you constantly spew on all subjects judicial, makes me think comment sections would be more useful (or at least, less of a wasteful bore) if participants had to take entrance exams in basic political science and economics. The difference between healthcare and political science is obvious to anyone with a working knowledge of basic concepts like the natural-right ends of government, the knowledge problem, and public vs. private goods (to say nothing of “won’t trust government to come anywhere near health care” being quite the straw man).

          Even so, I would happily advocate the following deal: we’ll agree to ban the death penalty if you agree to give up abortion. How about it?

          “It’s a cowardly kind of Christian love of Life that can only muster it for the blank slate of a fetus, who has no capacity to make decisions, good, bad, or criminal.”

          I love the irony of unrepentant babykillers getting self-righteous about love and decency. Not only is that a complete lie about who we lack love for — and what we do for them — it also calls to mind the cheap, empty phoniness of your “love” for everyone but the unborn. If there’s anything the past half century has proven, it’s that the policies you cling to as litmus tests for compassion don’t actually help the groups you use as rhetorical human shields. Poverty, healthcare, crime, race relations, illegitimacy, illiteracy…all of it has gotten WORSE thanks to your side, and is only going to keep going downhill if we keep denying the Left has driven this country into a quagmire. The truth, Astraspider, is that you don’t actually care about the well-being of poor, sick, or gay people any more than you care about babies being poisoned, dismembered, or starved to death. All you care about is maintaining the comforting illusion of moral superiority.

  • Dave

    A stupid question demands a stupid answer:

    Q: “If the fetus you save is gay, will you still fight for its rights?”

    A: “Yes, and I’ll fight for fetuses with pica while I’m at it.”