In India the Bajrang Dal & VHP are front organisations of right-wing party are carrying out merciless attacks on Christians and destroying Churches. The secular parties of India are demanding a ban on these terrorist outfits. Incidentally, these organisations raise majority of their funds from America and other western nations.

Surprising is’nt it? Money from US, UK and Canada is used to kill humans and spread religious hatred and bring down Churches.

The western nations should ban these organisations – Bajrang Dal, RSS & VHP (World Hindu Council) and freeze their funding sources.

Why did you have to ruin a good informative article with abusive language? I thought this blog claimed to have strict standards !?

I thought this blog claimed to have strict standards !?

It does… we expect language to be used in an appropriate context…

Fantastic piece Unity: well said.

good points and yes i really wish people like Sarah Palin would not play on their gender roles in the way they do.

Plus Sarah Brown needs to get her husband to think how much support midwifes get over there, they don’t even have money for photocopying apparently.

The subject of abortion really seems to make otherwise reasonable people go loopy. I understand that Unity is pro-abortion. So am I. But there is no point in simply putting your fingers in your ears and refusing to hear the arguments of those who disagree, or to shout abuse at them, pretending that they don’t have a reasonable position. Sarah pailin would arguie (I assume) that an abortion is a form of murder. That is not an unreasonable point of view. Given that worldview, you need to balance those women who suffer from not having access to abortion or from having backstreet treatmentsetc, against those people living who would otherwise be dead if their mothers had been able to abort them. Then it doesn’t look so clear cut, at least not from a Palinesque position. There is no point in just trying to shout anti-abortionists down.

Given that worldview, you need to balance those women who suffer from not having access to abortion or from having backstreet treatments etc, against those people living who would otherwise be dead if their mothers had been able to abort them.

So I’m expected to engage with a ‘worldview’ premised entirely on ‘because my invisible friend says so’ on the basis of the Great Beethoven fallacy.

If we’re to balance the life of a woman who wants an abortion but cannot obtain one anywhere but the backstreets against ‘those people living who would otherwise be dead if their mothers had been able to abort them’, which of those people do we choose the balance the woman’s life against?

Do we choose the genius, perhaps? Or the doctor, or the lawyer, or the clergyman? Or do we simply choose the virtuous man or woman?

Or maybe we choose the murderer, the rapist, the thug, the bully or, perhaps, the child who dies before his/her first birthday?

How do we balance the life of an independent, autonomous, thinking human being against a ‘potential’ life about we which we know nothing?

You seems to be assuming that I’m somehow refusing to listen to the ‘Palinesque’ arguments – in reality I listened to them a long time ago and rejected them after recognising them for what they are – bullshit!

“So I’m expected to engage with a ‘worldview’ premised entirely on ‘because my invisible friend says so’ on the basis of the Great Beethoven fallacy.”

You don’t have to conjour any invisible friends to hold the view that abortion is a kind of murder. It is a reasonable position and difficuult to refute. Can you refute it?

“If we’re to balance the life of a woman who wants an abortion but cannot obtain one anywhere but the backstreets against ‘those people living who would otherwise be dead if their mothers had been able to abort them’, which of those people do we choose the balance the woman’s life against?”

We have to generalise, there is no other way of having the debate. You want to call into evidence the fact that when abortion is not freely available a number of women suffer, but not to admit the fact that when abortion is not freely available fewer people are aborted and so there are more potentially happy human lives too (Beethoven or not) than there would otherwise be. That is your incoherence, not Palin’s.

“Do we choose the genius, perhaps? Or the doctor, or the lawyer, or the clergyman? Or do we simply choose the virtuous man or woman?”

We don’t have to choose any of them. We can afford the same value to all human life.

“How do we balance the life of an independent, autonomous, thinking human being against a ‘potential’ life about we which we know nothing?”

We do it all the time. When we let children into the lifeboats ahead of adults we are doing just that and finding the balance tipped towards the young. The question that we might ask instead is what the likely balance is in terms of total lives lost against total lives gained. That should be fairly easy to ascertain.

“You seems to be assuming that I’m somehow refusing to listen to the ‘Palinesque’ arguments – in reality I listened to them a long time ago and rejected them after recognising them for what they are – bullshit!”

You say they are bullshit but don’t offer an argument, that is why I get the impresion you haven’t listened.

“she could just fuck off back to Alaska and keep her misogynist religion and her anti-life, anti-woman fucking morality to herself.”

Liberal Conspiracy is becoming increasingly extreme. No contributor to conservativehome would ever post such rancorous rubbish. And George Carlin’s weird stand-up on abortion was stupid on so many levels. So conservatives are anti-abortion because they hate women and want children to grow into dead soldiers, yeah sure. And tell me what is wrong with allowing a child to be born and adopted, because there’s plenty of people who would be only too willing do the adopting?

Liberals like to feel morally superior and unselfish because they support green taxes, welfare programs etc. etc. etc., but when it comes to something that might seriously inconvenience them such as having to undergo pregnancy and birth as a consequence of their own willful sexual actions, they would rather take the selfish option. And I rather think that conservatives’ unwillingness to pay higher taxes is not as extreme as the unique selfishness of aborting away an unborn human for the sake of convenience.

Liberal Conspiracy is becoming increasingly extreme.

Hardly. You should try the rest of the blogosphere – right and left.

No contributor to conservativehome would ever post such rancorous rubbish.

ConservativeHome is not a standard bearer that we recognise. Anyway, each blogger’s opinions are just that: their opinions. There is no shared dogma.

Indeed, some of us are even in favour of low taxes. )

John:

If you bother to use the search facility to look up the stuff I’ve written here and at MoT on the subject of abortion, you’ll find a fair amount of material that deals with the moral and ethical questions raised by abortion.

That said, the contention here is that I’m somehow not listening, which is not true because believe me I have listened…

…and having listened, I’ve reached the conclusion that its a pile of crap. I don’t agree with it, I don’t accept its validity and I sure as hell don’t have to respect it either.

I have quite a number of complex views on the subject of abortion but if you want to bring it down to basics then my primary view is that if anyone disagrees with abortion then they’re perfectly welcome not to have one.

My view is that women are independent, autonomous, sentient human beings who possess the capacity to make their own moral and ethical choices, Palin’s is that we should all grovel before a non-existent sky fairy.

What’s there to listen to?

Leonie…

You’ll have to forgive me if I’ve cause any offence, it’s due to an allergy I suffer from…

…

I’m sanctimonious arsehole intolerant.

Unity – “Palin is anti-abortion and, judging by her involvement with the laughably misnamed ‘Feminists for Life’, rabidly so – the group is opposed to abortion even in situations where a woman conceives as a consequence of having been raped.”

Leonie – “Liberals….blah blah…but when it comes to something that might seriously inconvenience them such as having to undergo pregnancy and birth as a consequence of their own willful sexual actions, they would rather take the selfish option.”

rape…..their own wilful sexual actions……hmmm. You might want to respond with something a little less offensive yourself next time Leonie.

Leonie – “And tell me what is wrong with allowing a child to be born and adopted,”

Absolutely nothing, as long as that’s what the woman wants to do. That’s what being pro-choice is all about, it’s not about forcing or persuading women to have abortions, it’s about supporting women in whatever decision they make. Just like Palin did when her own daughter CHOSE to continue with her pregnancy.

As for “there’s plenty of people who would be only too willing do the adopting”

Try telling that to the 60,000 children currently being looked after in the care system in this country. Oh yes, I forgot, pro-lifers and their ilk are only interested in foetuses. Give them actual living breathing children in need of some support and suddenly they don’t give a shit.

In which case Unity if you think that you can save the world by using adolescent language against someone you don’t like or you can guarantee that all the unwanted pregnancies in the world will be dealt with by McCain-Palin failing to make it to the White house, then (if you’re not already there) catch the first plane to the USA and work night and day for Obama to get elected President. You appear to have a lot in common with Palin – violent fanaticism. Alternatively, you could invest in a Thesaurus and find some alternatives to “fuck off” and “fucking”. You’re obviously not a poet!

You’re obviously not a poet!

Jeeze Unity, she got you there. You better send that advance back to Faber and Faber. ;o)

Oh, well. I suppose this isn’t poetry either:

Philip Larkin – This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

“the Great Beethoven fallacy” Is that the one where you make a comparison between the best of something and the worst of it’s opposite?

I have a problem with George Carlin – he may on occasion be technically correct, but he’s not funny, he’s just obvious. He’s like Ben Elton and knob-gags – he expects you to choke on the cheesiness of it.

[rolls eyes]

As for Alaska Nell, it almost suffices by now to reduce her to a one-liner filler piece. She’s hardly worth getting so excited that you want to dig up some real meat from her backstory, let alone worth expending anything significant over.

[stops now]