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Commentary by James Shott

An abortion-related event occurred last week, and if you were paying close attention to the news, you might have been aware of that. Hundreds of thousands of abortion opponents gathered in Washington, DC for the “March for Life,” protesting the grisly process that has terminated about 55 million future Americans in the womb since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

It wasn’t easy to find news accounts of this event. The Media Research Center reports, “the broadcast networks combined devoted a total of just 46 seconds to the March. ABC offered 24 seconds and NBC gave it 22 seconds, correctly noting the ‘huge turnout’ despite brutal weather conditions. CBS didn’t bother to cover it at all.”

This coverage totaled about 18 percent of the coverage the birth of a panda cub at National Zoo received a few days earlier. In the eyes of our dedicated network news people, one new panda is six times more important than 55 million aborted potential children, and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who braved the cold to make their position known.

This helps confirm the long-held idea that we do not have a news media that furnishes the public with what it needs, but instead provides what it wants the public to know.

A fact sheet published by the Guttmacher Institute tells us that at least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45. Given that the cause of pregnancy is not a medical mystery, that is a shocking statistic.

Web4Health explains that sex without contraceptives carries an 85 percent likelihood of pregnancy, and if the most effective contraceptive methods are used properly, the chance of pregnancy drops to eight percent or less, but abstaining from sexual intercourse has a zero percent pregnancy rate, except for in vitro fertilization.

According to Guttmacher, fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant. Among those women, 76 percent of pill users and 49 percent of condom users report having used their method inconsistently. Forty-six percent of women who had abortions used no contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant.

Other factors contribute to unwanted pregnancy. Some men and women are uneducated about how to have responsible sex, and contraceptives can be expensive for some.

Abortion was, in fact, the solution for more than a million women who got pregnant unintentionally last year. But as long as abortions are an easy corrective for bad luck, carelessness or bad judgment, it seems unlikely that more responsible use of contraceptives will occur.

The problem with abortion is that at some point in the pregnancy the fetus will have developed enough to be justifiably considered a human being. That point may or may not be the same point as when the fetus can survive outside the womb, but whenever that point occurs and afterward, abortion is murder. The debate goes on over just when the fetus reaches that point.

It is commonly accepted that at 20 weeks the fetus can feel pain during an abortion, and at least one researcher believes that as early as eight weeks after conception the neural structures needed to detect certain stimuli are in place. As science progresses more and more becomes known about fetal development, pushing backward toward conception the point at which the fetus is a person.

Be that as it may, it is absolutely scandalous that in America in the 21st century so many women get pregnant who don’t want to, and that so many of them choose to abort the developing life inside them.

It ought to be a point of humiliation that the great majority of unwanted pregnancies result from carelessness or negligence in the use of contraceptives, or not using contraceptives at all.

A major provider of abortions is Planned Parenthood for America, and it receives more than $500 million each year in taxpayer funds to deliver “vital reproductive health care, sex education, and information to millions of women, men, and young people worldwide,” according to its Website, “the key program [of which] provides essential health care to women, the Title X Family Planning Program.”

Planned Parenthood provided 360,000 abortions in 2013. Providing abortions to women who are pregnant and don’t want to be is not planning for parenthood.

There are couples all across this nation who cannot conceive a child and would gladly adopt an unwanted child given up for adoption. Perhaps Planned Parenthood could shift its focus from abortion to adoption, and nurture women through their unwanted pregnancy to an end that both honors life and helps those who want children, but can’t have their own.

How many great writers, scientists, artists, inventers, athletes, etc., have been summarily snuffed out before they got started?

A young pregnant wife was hospitalized for a simple attack of appendicitis and had ice applied tfso her stomach. Afterward, doctors suggested that she abort the child, because the baby would be born with disabilities. The young wife decided not to abort, and the child was born. That woman was the mother of Andrea Bocelli.

Cross-posted from Observations

Commentary by James Shott

Mobile, Alabama’s hometown TV station WALA FOX10 reports the following story, which contains comments that will leave most people scratching their head in disbelief.

An unidentified man who was shopping at the local Family Dollar store in Mobile saw a masked man pointing a gun at an employee and leading the employee toward the front of the store.

When he moved closer to investigate, he found the following: “He had the gun to his head. He had him on his knees,” said the man. “I drew my gun on him and I said 'Hey, don't move.' At that point he swung around and before he had a chance to aim the gun at me, I fired. I didn’t want to shoot him,” he said.

The gunman, 18-year-old Adric White, was not killed, and was transported to a local hospital where he was treated and is now recuperating in police custody at the hospital. A second young man, 19-year-old Tavoris Moss has been arrested as an accomplice to the Family Dollar robbery, although the FOX10 story did not explain the role he is accused of playing in the incident.

Court records show that Adric White was out on bond for robbing The Original Oyster House at gunpoint a little more than a month before the Family Dollar robbery, and records show the Baldwin County District Attorney's Office has now filed to have the bond in that case revoked.

Summarizing this incident, a young man out on bond for armed robbery was holding an employee of a retail establishment at gunpoint, and was challenged by a Good Samaritan with a gun, who then shot the young man when the Good Samaritan thought he was about to be shot.

Where this story gets really strange is in the reaction of Adric White’s family. The relatives of this young man who had already been charged in one armed robbery and was wounded in a second attempt to rob a store at gunpoint might reasonably condemn the young man’s behavior and be thankful that this wayward son is still alive and in relatively good condition, and therefore might be subject to rehabilitation. But that is not how at least some of his relatives reacted.

A female family member who did not want to be identified said the 18-year-old should have never been shot to begin with.

“If his (the customer’s) life was not in danger, if no one had a gun up to him, if no one pointed a gun at him - what gives him the right to think that it's okay to just shoot someone?” said the relative. “You should have just left the store and went wherever you had to go in your car or whatever,” FOX10 reported the relative as saying.

Apparently, judging from this relative’s comments she believes the victim in this scenario is the robber holding the employee at gunpoint, not the employee being held at gunpoint. And, the person who has done wrong is not the guy holding an employee at gunpoint during a robbery, but the Good Samaritan who thwarts a robbery and saves the employee from possible harm or death at the hands of the robber.

Where does such upside-down thinking develop? Is it a feature of only a relative few troubled minds, or is it far more widespread? Is it born in a soul convinced that he/she is entitled and therefore can do no wrong, or somehow is not subject to the laws governing our behavior? Is it a product of a failing culture that has not imparted basic American and human values to more recent generations?

Interestingly, FOX10 had interviewed Adric White’s parents, but the station reports that they later called the station and demanded the video not be aired. We are left to wonder whether they share the screwy morality of the relative whose sentiments were reported above.

For the record, the police emphasize that the Good Samaritan – whose name was not released, perhaps for his own protection – who shot the alleged robber was justified and broke no laws.

“[Criminals] tend to think that they are the only ones with guns," the Good Samaritan told FOX10. "I’ve been legally carrying my firearm for a little over four years now, and thank God I’ve never had to use it until, of course, last night. It just goes to show it's good to have a concealed carry [permit]. You never know when you’re going to need it.”

This story is sure to contribute to the fierce debate over gun control. It is a point in favor of the idea held by many of those who defend the constitutional right of Americans to keep and bear arms that the best way to combat a bad guy with a gun is the presence of a good guy with a gun. It shows that there may be positive results when law-abiding citizens are armed.

Whichever side of that argument you are on, we can all acknowledge that because of the behavior of this man legally carrying a gun, a robbery was thwarted and the perpetrator did not harm anyone.

Cross-posted from Observations