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Reverse Hypocrisy
I’ve spent so much of my time reviewing atheists and skeptics that I’ve forgotten part of my mission is to point out inconsistencies in the doctrine and practice of other Christians. I saw an article in my hometown newspaper, The Blade, that contained an amazing quote by a professed Christian.
Normal hypocrisy is something that we see all the time. Basically, it is a fundamental difference between the way you think and the way you act. In other words, thinking like a Christian but not acting like a Christian. Ted Haggard is a great example. He preached against homosexuality, but resigned from the ministry in disgrace when it was revealed that he had a gay lover.
In Saturday’s edition of The Blade, I saw an example of reverse hypocrisy. This would entail acting like a Christian but not thinking like a Christian. Local woman Alesia Prater was robbed at gunpoint by now-convicted felon Rebecca Olinger. At Olinger’s sentencing, Prater was allowed to speak and said:
She’d have been better off asking me for money rather than pointing a gun at me. As a Christian, I have to forgive her. I don’t like that I do, but I do. (source)
Hmmm. That’s interesting. Prater not only feels obligated to forgive her assailant, but she doesn’t like doing it. And she vocalizes it. She’s doing it out of obligation for the sake of being a Christian.
Well, that’s just wrong. Read the rest of this entry
Stumping Pro-Lifers
Daniel Florien from Unreasonable Faith has a question that stumps pro-life demonstrators:
If abortion is illegal, what should the punishment be for women who have illegal abortions?
Florien thinks that this question will win any debate with pro-life people:
Now watch their faces as the cognitive dissonance sets in. They believe abortion to be murder. Murder deserves severe punishment. Thus, women who have illegal abortions should receive severe punishment — like life in prison or the death penalty. That’s the logical conclusion.
But they can’t accept this conclusion. They know it’s absurd and unfair — which means they know abortion is not really murder. (source)
Florien mistakenly believes that all pro-lifers are as inconsistent and uninformed in their views as the ones on the YouTube video that he accents this post with.
Why the inconsistency? Why are pro-lifers afraid to say that life in prison would be a reasonable punishment for a woman who has an illegal abortion? I’m not afraid to reveal that that is my position, after much soul-searching and prayer. Abortion is murder, and it should be punished as such.
However, to prove the copus delicti in these cases would entail proving both that the woman was pregnant, and she had an abortion. A careful woman would be able to conceal the fact that she was pregnant from everyone if she planned to have an abortion. There may be little evidence to prove that she was ever pregnant in the first place, and a back alley abortion clinic would have every reason to avoid admitting that they knew she was pregnant to protect themselves.
The mens rea would be a difficult process, too. You’d have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she intended to take her baby’s life, which means proving that, at the time the crime was committed, she understood that the baby was alive inside of her. Here it may be easy to feign ignorance or to muddy the waters by introducing medical data proving that the baby was already in danger of dying.
Conclusion: abortion is murder. Murder merits severe punishment. The punishment should be life in prison, as for any murder. But making a prosecutable case would be extremely difficult. But the possibility of such a sentence would still give anyone pause before committing the crime, and would make any law-abiding citizen consider an option better for the baby, like adoption.
Back Rome Again 