The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The #MarchForLife2015 Thread

Posted on | January 22, 2015 | 157 Comments

WASHINGTON, D.C.
The lobby and corridors of this hotel were crowded with Catholic school kids when we checked in yesterday. St. Vincent de Paul of Perryville, Missouri, was the most visible contingent — dozens of kids wearing blue-and-gold letterman’s jackets — but the annual March for Life brings groups from all around the country, not all of them Catholic. On my way down to the lobby to go out for a smoke this morning, I noticed one of the kids was wearing a nametag with the familiar Episcopalian (or Anglican) symbol: Red cross on a white field with the St. Andrew’s cross in blue. “Episcoplian?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” the boy said.

“Wow, I didn’t realize there were still pro-life Episcopalians.”

Out on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, the boy joined a group of about a dozen kids, and I spoke to one of the adult leaders, who told me they are from St. Michael’s Christian Academy of San Clemente, California.

Seeing so many fine young Christians who support the cause of life is very encouraging to me. I’ve spent the past several months of researching radical feminism and being immersed in such evil can be psychologically disorienting. “Has the whole world gone crazy?” I find myself asking, knowing how many millions of taxpayer dollars are spent to propagate this weird ideology in colleges and universities. “Is our civilization utterly doomed?”

The March for Life reminds me that there is still hope. There are still people who have not been deceived and corrupted. Unfortunately, however, there is the problem of Congress.

Pro-life conservatives were livid this morning after the House GOP leadership demonstrated its incompetence yesterday:

Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the Supreme Court legalizing abortion on demand throughout pregnancy. The pro-life movement commemorates this day with marches, worship services and lobbying for bills to protect unborn children. Pro-lifers were promised by the Republican leaders they just helped elect and re-elect that the House of Representatives would pass a bill today banning most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, a point after which infants can feel pain and survive if born prematurely.
The legislation has been passed by the House in the previous Congress and is extremely popular in national polling. “One of the clearest messages from Gallup trends,” the polling firm reported, “is that Americans oppose late-term abortion.” A Washington Post/ABC survey showed that 64 percent of Americans favor limiting abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy or earlier. . . .
We’re one of just a small handful of countries, including notorious human rights violators North Korea and China, that allow late-term abortion.
And yet somehow the Republicans managed to make a disaster of passing the bill. Instead of passing the legislation and sending it to the Republican-controlled Senate, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act was pulled at the last minute and replaced with a bill that bans taxpayer funding of abortion.
What in the h-e-double-hockey-sticks just happened? It takes a special combination of incompetence and cowardice to miss an easy lay-up like this, but apparently the new Republican Congress has it in spades. . . .
If Republicans can’t pass wildly popular legislation protecting innocent unborn children, what’s going to happen when they face difficult legislative battles? . . .

You can read the rest. What happened is that two Republican members — including Rep. Renee Ellmers, whose election campaign in 2010 I strongly supported — decided at the last minute that they didn’t like some language in the bill. The problem, as I see it, is not with the bill, and not even with Ellmers. The problem is that the leadership doesn’t know how to whip the caucus properly and make sure they’ve got 100% support on crucial votes. Tom DeLay never would have let a trainwreck like this happen. Organizational incompetence is perhaps even more dangerous than ideological wobbling in a situation like this.

Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”

The lack of vision among some of our leaders is disappointing, but the people who “keepeth the law” are still happy. When I went out for another smoke, I encountered a group of about 20 people from Voice of Truth, a church near the central Georgia town of Dublin:

Voice of Truth is a non-denominational church where the Word of God is taught and preached. The church was formed when several Christian families felt called by God to reach out to the unchurched in our community. God has blessed us and we have grown in a few short years to a congregation of more than two hundred.

Preaching the Word of God and reaching out to “the unchurched”? Of course God will always bless that kind of work. I spoke to the leaders of the church, including brothers Phil and Keith Mills. They hold to a very basic Bible-focused theology, the kind you don’t need a Ph.D. to understand. As they were ready to leave for the march, they asked me to walk with them a little way. Phil explained that he and his brother were once a couple of young hellbound sinners, “just as bad as we could be.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I used to be a Democrat myself.”

 




 

Category: Abortion, Congress, Feminism

Comments

157 Responses to “The #MarchForLife2015 Thread”

  1. Political Rift » The #MarchForLife2015 Thread
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 2:18 pm

    […] Robert Stacy McCain WASHINGTON, D.C. The lobby and corridors of this hotel were crowded with Catholic school kids when […]

  2. NeoWayland
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 2:24 pm

    And there’s the issue.

    Even if your cause is good, why must you act as if the only true morality comes from Christianity? Why is it necessary to convert people to Christianity for your cause? Do you think that without the Bible verses, people won’t know? Even though your own holy book tells you that your god’s Word is in every fiber of creation?

    Don’t you think people can choose for themselves?

    Why are you so afraid to let them?

  3. robertstacymccain
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 2:31 pm

    Sure, everybody can choose for themselves:

    “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil . . . I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.”
    — Deuteronomy 30:15, 19 (KJV)

    There is a way that leads to “life and good,” and there is the other way. You can choose either.

  4. Bob Belvedere
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 2:45 pm

    It does fill my heart to see so many young people actually taking action to protect our most sacred gift: Life.

    The Left may destroy America utterly, but as long as the ideas that animate it survive in the Soul of one person then there’s Hope.

  5. NeoWayland
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 3:03 pm

    There is more than one way.

    “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it.”
    — from the Kalama Sutta

  6. Trespassers W
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 3:20 pm

    John 14:6.

  7. JeffS
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 3:22 pm

    “ Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many generations. …. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures.”

    Stacy quotes from one religious book. You quote from another.

    Exactly how is your way “different”?

    Please note: I ask as an agnostic.

  8. Fail Burton
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 3:23 pm

    French Queer Theory doesn’t produce families, it produces a psychologically and societal suicidal KKK of eunuchs which preys on a society that does. Simone de Beauvoir would’ve looked at those kids a lot differently, which is why genderkampf’s icon had her teaching certificate revoked. Genderkampf doesn’t include the sounds of laughing children.

  9. DeadMessenger
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 3:24 pm

    The Kalama Sutta is wrong. Either you’re really credulous, or you’re deliberately trying to be offensive.

  10. Dana
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 3:27 pm

    Our bearded host wrote:

    “Wow, I didn’t realize there were still pro-life Episcopalians.”

    Heck, I didn’t realize that there were still any Episcopalians left at all!

  11. Dana
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 3:35 pm

    The problem with your comment is that while it is certainly possible to come to a pro-life morality without Christianity or some other religion, it sure doesn’t seem to happen very often.

    The problem is obvious: if a person does not recognize the authority of God, then he becomes the arbiter of his own morality, and human beings have shown a marked tendency to adjust their own morality as the situation changes. And that is something you recognize yourself, having written, “Don’t you think people can choose for themselves?”

    Which is exactly right: people do choose for themselves, and it seems to me that we have a very great inclination to choose what we see as best — or most convenient — for ourselves at the moment. Acknowledging the suzerainty of the Lord means that people must at least consider the longer term, and that what might seem convenient for themselves, at the present time, is still wrong in the larger sense.

  12. NeoWayland
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 3:54 pm

    That’s my point. There is more than one way. Morality doesn’t not derive solely from Christianity.

    I can be moral without being a Christian. Christians can be immoral.

    I accept that Christianity is the center of many people’s lives. But not everyone. If our culture’s morality depends solely on one religion, then by definition anyone not of that religion can not be moral.

    We know that isn’t true. We know that there has to be a definition of morality beyond “the Bible tells me so.”

  13. NeoWayland
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 3:55 pm

    For you, yes.

    For me and most of the planet, no.

  14. NeoWayland
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 3:59 pm

    Why do you think I chose a Buddhist text?

    It’s not because that is my path.

    This isn’t about me vs. Christianity. It’s about Christians asserting that their religion is the only one that matters, even if someone is not a Christian. It’s about Christian morality being the only moral code recognized, even if others have their own.

  15. Trespassers W
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:03 pm

    Huh. Jesus clearly claims to be not A way, but THE way. On what basis can you claim that his statement applies to me but not you?

  16. NeoWayland
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:03 pm

    “The problem with your comment is that while it is certainly possible to come to a pro-life morality without Christianity or some other religion, it sure doesn’t seem to happen very often.’

    There is already one agnostic commenting on this thread. Ask him.

    The problem is obvious: if a person does not recognize the authority of God, then he becomes the arbiter of his own morality, and human beings have shown a marked tendency to adjust their own morality as the situation changes.

    Yes. And it’s just as true of Christians as any other group.

  17. NeoWayland
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:06 pm

    Because I am not Christian. I have my own path and my own connection to the Divine.

    Most of the planet isn’t Christian.

  18. Trespassers W
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:09 pm

    There’s the problem: You are speaking solely about morality. Christianity is not merely a moral code.

  19. Gugna
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:10 pm

    While I was once a raging liberal and an atheist, at least I’ll never have to confess to anyone: “Yeah,…I used to be a Democrat myself.” Which is to say, thank-you for helping me appreciate the little things!

  20. NeoWayland
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:11 pm

    It’s not THE Answer either.

    It may be Your Answer, and if so, that’s great.

    Right up to the point where you demand that I recognize your religion and moral code over mine. Then we’ll have a problem.

  21. Gunga
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:12 pm

    Shorter Kalama Sutta: Do not believe the Kalama Sutta.

  22. kilo6
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:15 pm

    With respect to Rep. Ellmers and many other members of our political class, may I politely also suggest the following:
    Psalm 145
    [1] Alleluia, of Aggeus and Zacharias.
    [2] Praise the Lord, O my soul, in my life I will praise the Lord: I will sing to my God as long as I shall be. Put not your trust in princes: [3] In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation. [4] His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return into his earth: in that day all their thoughts shall perish. …

  23. Trespassers W
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:17 pm

    It’s not a question of what religion “matters,” it’s about what is TRUE. Jesus did not come to set up a moral code, he came “to seek and to save the lost.”

  24. RS
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:18 pm

    The problem with your argument is that it is not tenable given the claims of Jesus of Nazareth. As C.S. Lewis so aptly put it, He is either who He claimed to be, i.e. God Incarnate and the Salvation of Mankind, or He is a lunatic or He is a liar. A “good man” and “great philosopher” are not options open to us.

  25. Shawn Smith
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:22 pm

    Most of the planet also doesn’t believe in freedom of speech. Much of the planet has little respect for property rights. Does that make them right?

  26. DeadMessenger
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:23 pm

    So yes then, you were deliberately trying to be offensive.

    The owner of this blog is Christian, and you know that. The majority of participants are Christian, and if not, they’re not contentious about the majority viewpoint (except you).

    Which sort of makes me wonder why, of all the blogs in all the world, you chose this one. Unless, again, your raison d’être is being argumentative. It seems like you’d want to frequent blogs where you find others more amenable to your opinions.

  27. RS
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:26 pm

    St, Vincent’s is a wonderful school located in Southeast Missouri. It’s very good in sports, BTW. It’s located at “Ground Zero” for the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church (which has its own H.S. there), so it draws from a wide area of counties.

    The high school where my wife teaches sent a sizable contingent, as did my son’s (Lutheran) high school. I

    t’s good to see the kids haven’t been seduced by the mantra of personal expediency to the detriment of human life.

  28. Trespassers W
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:29 pm

    You haven’t answered my question.

  29. Trespassers W
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:30 pm

    Then Jesus was a liar.

  30. Trespassers W
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:33 pm

    Please stop reducing Christianity to a moral code. You are only proving that you do not understand Christianity.

  31. kilo6
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:37 pm

    In addition Plato, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas (among many others) quantified the same concepts while defining logical fallacies within the Classical Trivium. Namely-

    Appeal to authority
    Appeal to tradition
    Appeal to common practice
    Appeal to belief

    Among others listed here.
    Although I do not know you, RSM or anyone else on this site in real life, I do not believe anyone here has or is advocating any form of theocratic government which would enforce a religious belief system on it’s citizens.

  32. K-Bob
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:51 pm

    I see this issue differently, since I’m looking down the road a bit more.

    I’m positive this bill was an attempt to sabotage conservatives, and I think it’s good that it goes back on the back-burner for now. This business of Ellmers and co. worrying over alienating women voters is a smokescreen. One of Obama’s biggest voting blocs is single-women under age 35 (because Feminism). We aren’t going to get those folks suddenly voting for Republicans no matter how hard you pander to them.

    And the left is not thanking Ellmers and Walorski for jamming up the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

    No, they think that this just proves that the GOP is convinced women love to lie about rape.

    In a sad way, they are sort of right. If you only allow abortions to women who go to the cops to declare they had been raped, then you are going to have an increase on women attempting to use that tactic. This is obvious. Personally, I’d like to see rape counseling that is done in favor of the unborn as the place to deal with that issue, and not the sharp edge of law enforcement.

    But more importantly, this is an issue that belongs to the states. The only bills they should be passing on it are ones that prevent the feds from interfering with state legislation on it (and should establish full Constitutional support of the right of states to do so).

  33. …Like the Two Times Barack Won | Regular Right Guy
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 4:55 pm

    […] The #MarchForLife2015 Thread […]

  34. K-Bob
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 5:02 pm

    No, it does not derive solely from Christianity.

    But curiously, 100% of the “morals” laid down by Christian teaching are supported fully by a study of The Ethics and meet the test of logic.

    Those early Christian writers, going clear back to the Psalms and even to Genesis, were not “new” to the whole philosophy gig. Aristotle helped clear out a lot of sophistry, but most of that sophistry was bad interpretation of what was written in those old scrolls.

    So while morality doesn’t have to “be” Christian, it’s a fact that Christian morality is moral, whether it comes from Christianity or not.

  35. K-Bob
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 5:14 pm

    You have a problem if you choose to violate the law. The law is mostly compliant with Christian doctrine.

    You’ll find it is also mostly compliant with Hindu doctrine. India has made sure of this, as a former Commonwealth/Raj nation, with a strong tradition of the law.

    That’s because it’s logical stuff, not just a bunch of received dogma. It works in its haphazard way precisely because it gets bashed on by the brilliant, the rat-clever, the insane, and the just, every single day, throughout the West, and in many non-Western cultures as well.

    If you have some personal code of morals that goes against all of that, then you need to be happy with the potential of jail time.

  36. Quartermaster
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 5:21 pm

    I don’t think he’s intentionally trying to be offensive, it’s simply his nature generated by his philosophical credulity. Neo thinks we obsess. I think he’s simply hurt himself by refusing to recognize truth. He’d rather act like a philosophical puppy and chase his tail because he simply has refused to develop the mental faculties required for critical thinking.

  37. NikFromNYC
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 5:24 pm

    Praying for most black babies to not be aborted, praying thus for more Democrats who will immediately turn the country into a socialist dictatorship and just legalize abortion again, but before any of this would happen all the reinvigorated nanny state social conservatism will merely elect Hillary. Gee thanks, stupid party, for Bible thumping instead of focusing on small limited government, dear Bible justice warriors (BJWs).

  38. Quartermaster
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 5:25 pm

    It doesn’t matter whether you admit it or not. You WILL stand before God one day. Then all the spew you’ve posted at places like this will be brought back before you.

    Just tell the creator that he’s obsessing. I can guarantee you won’t be amused by the outcome.

    For you and the entire planet, yes. Chase your tail all you like, but your credulity will cost you everything.

  39. texlovera
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 6:14 pm

    Hey Stacy-

    off topic, but Barrett Brown got some serious hard time today:

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-news-bc-hacking22-20150122-story.html

  40. RS
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 6:26 pm

    The foundation of limited government is predicated upon the individual, who is possessed of certain unalienable rights, the first of which is “life.” That’s not only in the Bible; it’s in our Declaration of Independence. You might wish to review it before dropping inane comments in a blog post.

    Without a moral foundation, simple fiscal conservatism is doomed to destruction for the simple reason that without the Transcendent, it is merely another movement which seeks power over others. There is no greater power over another than that which can arbitrarily consign another to death, whether for political reasons or personal expediency. Further, the bulwark against the Nanny State is buttressed by two, and only two, institutions: Traditional Marriage and the Traditional Family. Destroy those–and abortion most certainly works to destroy the latter, if not the former–and you open the door to the sort of governmental intrusion which you implicitly abhor.

    We, as a society, have a right and a duty to protect innocent life, wherever it is and regardless of its race, creed, background or whether they may vote the way we wish. And that is the question. What is it that we are allowing to be destroyed? Is it Human? Is it Life? Is it innocent? Those are the questions people like you refuse to answer, because if you answer honestly, the answers are untenable.

    But, by all means, slander social conservatives and advocate for your flat tax or repeal of regulation or whatever, while closing a blind eye to the worms eating at the structure of the republic. You’ll wind up being amazed when it crashes around you, because the only thing people will hear is the “do what you want” stuff, which is diametrically opposed to taking personal responsibility for one’s own actions.

  41. Adobe_Walls
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 6:30 pm

    So your a pagan. Do you support abortion?

  42. RichFader
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 6:38 pm

    If your strategy for beating the Democrats is homicide, you’re doing life wrong, let alone politics.

  43. Adobe_Walls
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 7:02 pm

    He doesn’t understand conservatism or liberty either.

  44. Adobe_Walls
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 7:02 pm

    So you chose a religious text you don’t believe in to trump another religious text you don’t believe in.

    The Aztecs had their own path.

  45. K-Bob
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 7:10 pm

    Lamest attempt at misdirection I’ve seen in months.

  46. Adobe_Walls
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 7:32 pm

    The problem is Renee Ellmers and those like her. I supported her in 2010 after she won the primary. She began betraying us in NC 2nd almost immediately. Like most Republicans she only cares about reelection. The only metric they use is what group that I need to pander to might this bill alienate. I lived in Johnston Co which is no longer in the 2nd district but the area that are now in her district are mostly bible belt. If the national consensus 66% in favor of outlawing abortion after 20 weeks her district is 10 points higher. There is no excuse for this crap ACE is right we need a sh!tlist.

  47. Zohydro
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 7:37 pm

    I didn’t realise until today that Ace is pro-choice… I’m not surprised but still a bit disappointed!

  48. Adobe_Walls
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 7:43 pm

    Yeah but he’s still pissed at the Republicans over this. Also I don’t think he’s opposed to this particular bill.

  49. NeoWayland
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 7:55 pm

    But freedom of speech and property rights don’t require Christianity.

    And quoting Bible verses won’t give it to them.

    A positive example might.

  50. NeoWayland
    January 22nd, 2015 @ 7:57 pm

    Yes I did.