Professor Charo refuses to defend her position

straightdope: The ethics of accidential vs. deliberate abortion
No answer from Professor Charo, the noted expert in ethics, on the seemingly simple, Yes/No question of whether deliberate abortion is ethically equivalent to accidental, spontaneous abortion.

Yes, that's the same Professor Alta Robin Charo who, according to her online biography, "is a member of the boards of the Alan Guttmacher Institute and... the National Medical Advisory Committee of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America...".

I'm not on any prestigious boards like those, so of course I should know better than to dare have an opinion on such complicated ethical questions as whether the deliberate killing of a human being is morally equivalent to an unintended, accidental death.

But that won't stop me from stating the obvious. A person doesn't need to be a professor of ethics to understand that killing the defenseless is despicable. Denying the unborn access to the banquet table of human rights is evil. Dr. Charo benefits (richly) from the fruits of that table, but doesn't seem to think everyone else is entitled to such benefits.

And trying to publicly obscure such simple truths with sophistry -and declining to honestly defend one's position on such matters- is cowardly and worthy of public reproach.

Sexist assault on Sarah Palin - New York Post

A TIME-WARPED SEXIST ASSAULT ON SARAH PALIN - New York Post

Right on target.

All black people -including Barak Obama- should understand

Black people were systematically enslaved and oppressed in the United States for hundreds of years. Their humanity was denied, their human rights trampled.

You'd think that with such a history, black people would be quick to denounce and combat other forms of oppression that, like slavery, deny both the humanity and basic rights of the vulnerable.

Why do so many white people tolerate legalized elective abortion? Despite slavery's history perhaps whites are still slow to recognize oppression, at least when the oppression is praised by some as a sacred right and enshrined by unjust law... just as slavery was enshrined and defended as a right.

But why do so many black people tolerate and even defend legalized elective abortion? Why don't they recognize it for what it is, and denounce it and all its defenders, both black and white?

That to me is a great mystery.


“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“A nation that kills its children is a nation without hope.” -Pope John Paul II

The ethics of accidential vs. deliberate abortion

To:
R. Alta Charo
Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law and Bioethics,
University of Wisconsin Law School

Dear Professor Charo,

Last week I invited You to clarify Your comments quoted in the recent USA Today article, Differences surface in McCain-Obama Christian forum

I didn’t receive a response from You, but perhaps my question was not clear enough to merit a response. I'll try to be clearer by cutting to the ethical crux of the matter:

Is it indeed Your position that deliberate, procured abortion is ethically equivalent to accidental, spontaneous abortion?

Because of Your expertise in the areas of bioethics and reproductive rights law, I'm very interested to learn Your perspective on this important question.

Thank You for Your consideration.

Sincerely,
John Robin.

Dr. Charo, do You believe a procured abortion is equivalent ethically to an accidental miscarriage?

Dear Professor Charo,

I am disappointed that Your response (of 18 August) was nothing more meaningful than a link to an article about Luc Bovens' Journal of Medical Ethics paper on the "rhythm method". The medical basis for his assertions is widely controverted, but that's beside the point. (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/health/13rhyt.html)

Any reasonable person can distinguish clear moral differences between these scenarios:

1) a couple intends to avoid conception, has sexual intercourse at a time they have scientifically but erroneously determined to be infertile. They conceive, but the child dies through unintentional miscarriage;

2) a couple deliberately conceives multiple children, and then deliberately targets some for implantation and others for extermination;

3) a scientist deliberately conceives multiple children, then subjects them to mutilating experiments, finally destroying them.

Your quotation in the USA Today article seems to imply that pro-lifers, in order to be "consistent", must oppose on ethical grounds anything that results in the death of human embryos, regardless of whether the deaths are unintended or deliberate. Is this really what You are implying? Would You please clarify?

Best regards,
John Robin.

Natural family planning NOT ethically equivalent to embryonic stem cell research

Re: Differences surface in McCain-Obama Christian forum

To: R. Alta Charo, professor of law and ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dear Professor Charo,

USA Today quoted You, "If (McCain) believes in human rights at the moment of conception, then he ought to be against embryonic stem cell research, IVF (in vitro fertilization) and even the so-called rhythm method."

If this quote is accurate, then it’s only two-thirds right. Certainly, the inalienable rights of a newly conceived human being ought to be protected, and embryonic stem cell research and IVF result in terrible violations of these rights.

However, the “rhythm method” and other forms of natural family planning involving periodic abstinence (such as the highly effective “Creighton Model”) involve acts of a much different sort, acts that do not result in injury or death to any human being. Couples who practice periodic abstinence exercise their reproductive powers in a responsible and loving way, without trying to manipulate, circumvent, or destroy either the nature of the sexual act or its natural consequences, namely conception and childbirth.

By contrast, IVF and embryonic stem cell research subject newly conceived human beings to manipulation and death by experimentation and selective extermination. Even if these activities are carried out for good motives, such as to further medical research or bring children to an infertile couple, they are ethically reprehensible because they involve the exploitation and killing of one class of human beings in order to obtain some benefit for another class of human beings.

It is no coincidence that couples who practice periodic abstinence as a means of regulating conception and childbirth tend to be strongly “pro-life”, believing that from the moment of conception, human beings have inalienable rights which must be protected by any just society. Those who hold such a position stand ethically on high ground.

Thinking of getting a vasectomy?

Lately I've heard several radio ads for a Chicago-area clinic encouraging men to have a vasectomy. If You're thinking about it, I urge You to research this carefully, and don't rely only on the information provided by those selling these procedures.

Why do I care? No, I haven't had this procedure and never will. There are strong philosophical and moral reasons why no man -especially no Christian (much less a Catholic) man- should consider sterilizing himself. But aside from those reasons I feel sorry for the men who will have this operation and regret it purely because of the chronic physical pain that afflicts more than a few. So I just want to point to some medical info You should be aware of if You're considering paying someone to sterilize You.


"Pain, Diabetes And Dementia -Research Highlights Medical Risks of Vasectomies"
National Catholic Register, August 12-18, 2007
-Read about what may be strong link between vasectomy and a form of dementia called primary progressive aphasia (PPA).

If It Works, Don't Fix It!
Vasectomy Information Home Page.
-Lots of information and references regarding the risks of vasectomy.

"Vasectomy: A pain in the b***s?"
Malehealth
"...few realise that at up to one in three can expect to suffer long-term testicular pain."

"Testicular Pain Following Vasectomy: A Review of Postvasectomy Pain Syndrome"
Christiansen and Sandlow, Journal of Andrology, 2002.
The University of Iowa Department of Urology, Iowa City, Iowa.
"...a small percentage of postvasectomy patients (less than 10%) develop PVPS."
(What if You're in the unlucky 10%?)

LongTerm Complications after a Vasectomy Operation
ABC Radio National
"I had a terrible experience of the pain over a period of a few days, just continuing to get worse and worse and worse and worse. Until I reached the point where I was writhing on the floor in agony; it was dreadful..."

Also see the following:

Journal of Urology
* J Urol 1997 Oct;158(4):1528. Re: Vasectomy reversal for treatment of the post-vasectomy pain syndrome.
* Br J Urol 1997 Feb;79(2):269-270; The incidence of post-vasectomy chronic testicular pain and the role of nerve stripping (denervation) of the spermatic cord in its management.
* J Urol 1996 Apr;155(4):1284-1286; Questionnaire-based outcomes study of nononcological post-vasectomy complications.
* Br J Urol 1992 Feb;69(2):188-191; Chronic testicular pain following vasectomy.
* Br J Urol 1991 Oct;68(4):407-413; Epididymectomy for post-vasectomy pain: histological review.
* J Urol 1985 Sep;134(3):494-497; A late post-vasectomy syndrome.