[Pascal's wager, from a fundie, anti-abortion POV]
If pro-lifers are wrong, then we're guilty of depriving women of their civil liberties, for nine months at a time. If the pro-abortion wackos are wrong, then they've deprived people of life, PERMANENTLY.
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The logical extension:
Interesting comment, Kyle.http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/bloody-tactics-blur-the-truth/2006/02/11/1139542445617.html
"Bloody Tactics Blur The Truth" By Monica Dux
There is a picture you can view if you type the words "Jesus" and "abortion" into Google image. Our classically bearded saviour is kneeling, looking upset. In his hand he cups a dead foetus, presumably aborted, blood splattered on the ground below. I first saw this image as a teenager, on the dining-room wall of some young Catholics I knew. It was hanging in pride of place, prominently framed in the spot that my parents' generation would have reserved for the inexplicably weeping bare-breasted Hawaiian girl.
At the time my left-leaning peers were adorning the walls of their own student houses with similarly impassioned images. I'd seen Woman Power collages, various South American revolutionaries and posters arguing the environmental benefits of not using toilet paper. But this was the first time I'd seen a dead foetus on a dining-room wall. While both forms of protest art pointed to things being very wrong with the state of the world, my right-to-lifers were able to make their case using something far more graphic and compelling than images of tough women in overalls, triumphantly reclaiming the streets with their fists in the air. They had big ideas on their side: the sanctity of life and the law of God.
The recent debate concerning the drug RU486 and the associated private members bill has provided the right-to-lifers with an opportunity to reinvigorate the abortion debate, but it is a debate that never really went away. Anyone who has walked past the abortion clinic in East Melbourne would have seen the diehard band of protesters armed with their prosthetic aborted foetuses, praying for God's mercy while doing their very best to ensure that women entering the clinic, who have already struggled with a tough decision, feel as rancid as possible.
Those zealously opposed to legal terminations thrive on emotion. It is their most potent and compelling weapon and they use it with promiscuous pleasure. With all the subtlety of a Danish Muhammad cartoon, the pro-life lobby discard all nuance and drown all debate with the simple cry of "baby murder".
There's a ghoulish fascination in viewing the images of aborted foetuses that litter right-to-life websites. The Pro-Life Victoria site is particularly charming. There you'll find a page featuring two bald headings: "Alive Children" and "Dead Children; aborted". The first page delights with images of happy, healthy babies, smiling joyfully at the camera. On the second, one is bombarded with pictures of blackened and mutilated foetuses.
These gratuitous pictures have no context or explanation. But such manipulative tactics achieve the desired effect. Who cares about rational argument and subtle distinctions when you're confronted with an image of a dead baby?
Maybe it's time the pro-choice lobby adopted similar tactics? What about a website featuring "Happy Women and Children" and "Sad Women and Children"? Click on the former and you are treated to rosy scenes of women living full and meaningful lives, gaining an eduction, making employment decisions that ensure a financially stable future, enjoying a healthy relationship with a decent, loving partner, and finally having a child that is happy, healthy and wanted. On the other page we would see teary mothers and unwanted babies: wasted lives, lost opportunities, splintered families and neglected children.
But maybe this isn't strong enough to match the mutilated foetus tactics of the anti-abortion lobby. I've got it! Maybe Jesus could be recruited to the pro-choice cause. I see the proud poster now; our Lord, wearing an apron, a screaming child tucked under each arm, his hair and beard greasy and unwashed, waiting for the next single parent payment to come in, wishing that abortion had been an option when he and Mary Magdalene had that little slip-up. The slogan: "If it weren't for the twins I could have really amounted to something." Maybe this will do the trick.
Why are Pro Lifers generally anti contraception, pro death penalty, and rabidly pro war? Don't they give a good God damn about these babies after they're no longer fetuses? .... Never mind I know the answer.
If pro-lifers are wrong, and get their way, then they're guilty of driving humanity to the point of extreme overpopulation which will result in famine, disease, or genocide curbing the population rather than contraception and abortion. If pro-choicers are wrong, then we're guilty of trying to give women their civil liberties.
"Why are Pro Lifers generally anti contraception, pro death penalty, and rabidly pro war? Don't they give a good God damn about these babies after they're no longer fetuses? .... Never mind I know the answer."
You forgot to mention how they pro-life politicians tend to be so conservative that they tend to veto every child leave, child welfare and anti-poverty bill. Right after they criminalize abortion they'd be the first to forget about the shockwave their actions will have on society.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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