Audio Abort73

Abortion is sold as a result of (and remedy for) poverty. But what if that's backwards? What if the states most ideologically committed to abortion are the same ones that are in the worst financial shape? What if free birth control isn't leading to fewer abortions but more? Wouldn't that be surprising.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer thought deeply about the church's responsibility to oppose state-sanctioned evil. And he didn't just think; he acted—which cost him his life. Today Bonhoeffer is hailed for being one of the only German pastors to publicly stand against Hitler, but what would Bonhoeffer say of abortion? What would he expect men and women of conviction to do?

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The authors of Freakonomics made headlines for suggesting that the legalization of abortion in the 70's led to significant crime reduction in the 90's—on the assertion that abortion was eliminating large swaths of future criminals from ever taking to the streets. The only problem is, their analysis was backyards. Abortion hasn't created better outcomes for born children; it's created worse.

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Global abortion statistics don't actually exist, but global abortion "estimates" are trotted out as if they were the same thing. Published by Guttmacher and given the stamp of approval by the United Nations and the World Health Organization, you might be surprised to learn that these wildly-inflated estimates have almost no basis in empirical data. Let's talk about why that is and what it means.

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Linda Gordon is a long-time feminist author and historian. She has written the book on birth control. And what she tells us is revealing. Birth control is not the solution to abortion. It is the gateway to abortion. You cannot accept the one without the other. And vice versa.

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Professor David Livingstone Smith wrote the book on dehumanization, but he left abortion almost completely out of the discussion. Why is that? Is abortion the one context in all of human history in which it is morally legitimate to dehumanize and destroy a group of demonstrably human beings?

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There are essentially two types of charities in the world. Those that provide tangible services, like a soup kitchen, and those that provide non-tangible services, like a public school. And when it comes to evaluating their relative records of success, it's crucial you not mix these categories up.

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Part one of this discussion made the assertion that no matter how many pragmatic benefits abortion affords, they still don't justify the mass execution of the most innocent and helpless members of the human community. In this follow-up, we look at the claim that outlawing abortion does not actually reduce total abortions. Is that true?

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The pragmatic case for legal abortion entirely avoids any discussion of right and wrong. Instead, it argues that restricting abortion leads to increases in crime, poverty, and unwanted births. Even assuming that is true, does it matter?

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How is it that people on both sides of the abortion debate claim Martin Luther King Jr. as one of their own? Well, there's a reason for that, which is what this episode is all about.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit abort73.substack.com