Organization: Rowan College of New Jersey
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Wed, 27 Jan 1993 12:04:07 -0500
From:         Dr Nancy's Sweetie <kilroy@GBORO.ROWAN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: March for Life

(This started as private mail, and turned into something relevant to the
 way conflicts get settled.  I'd appreciate input from people on how to
 settle conflicts without first taking a hostile stance.  I'm not interested
 in re-discussing the morality of abortion.)

 *

> Friday, January 22, was the anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1973
> decisions that legalized abortion on demand for the full nine months
> of pregnancy.

I cannot interpret this in any way that makes sense.

Justice Blackmun, writing for the majority, said this:

        If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after
        viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during
        that period except when it is necessary to preserve the life
        or health of the mother [...]

Whether "abortion on demand for the full nine months of pregnancy" is the law
or not, Roe v Wade specifically allows the state to forbid abortions after
viability.  Do you have some other decision in mind which modifies this
position?


> Saturday I attended a March for Life convention.  I'm not going to go into
> details, but I will mention that one speaker said that after World War II
> Admiral Yamamoto said that Japan had expected that the sneak attack on Pearl
> Harbor would administer a crushing blow, but instead it awoke a sleeping
> giant that crushed them.

Not quite: Adm Yamamoto said this on December 7, 1941, the very day of the
attack.  The intent of the Japanese plans had been to deliver an ultimatum to
the US just before the attack; however, the diplomats with the message were
delayed, and they did not deliver it until AFTER the attack.

So far as I can tell, the hope had been to present some scary rhetoric
indicating a pending attack, and then while the advisors were still deciding
what to do show off just how far the Japanese were willing to go in backing up
the rhetoric.  Sort of the way a cat hisses and then scratches, hoping the
huge dog will decide to leave it alone.

(The Japanese also hoped to cripple the US Pacific fleet, which they failed
 to do.  But it would probably not have made any difference in the end; the
 US commanded many times the Japanese industrial power, and probably would
 have re-constructed the fleet and continued the battle.)

However, the attack happened with no warning.  Adm Yamamoto wrote that because
the attack happened BEFORE the ultimatum was delivered, the Americans would
see it as totally unprovoked, and "I cannot imagine anything which would
enrage the Americans more.  I fear all we have done is to waken a sleeping
giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

(I'm doing the quote from memory.  George Will quoted it in his column of
 December 7, 1991, which I can't find right now.  Take with grains of salt,
 or maybe go look it up.  It's not a bad essay.)


> This was said in connection with the fact that the election of Bill Clinton
> was followed by the largest March for Life yet.  The election of a pro-
> abortion president is a setback, but ultimately we will win.

[ I see you are still using pro-abortion, despite that the President made a
  point of saying that he is not pro-abortion.  If you can't bring yourself
  to say pro-choice, can you at least use "pro-abortion-availability"?  It
  is more accurate and is not nearly so insulting. ]

Win?  In what sense?

Adm Yamamoto's comment about sleeping giants was made in a particular context:
starting a war.  What he knew (that a lot of people in Japan had apparently
forgotten) is that when you start a war, it has to end somehow.  He knew that
it was not going to end with the surrender of the United States, and that it
would probably not be possible to negotiate a peace while Japan still had
significant military capability.  The remaining option was the surrender of
Japan.  That's how shooting wars go: eventually one side gives up, or
everybody on one side (or maybe both) dies.


The comparison with abortion, and especially with President Clinton, is
defective in several ways.  The election of Bill Clinton did not start the war
over abortion; his leaving office will not end it.  Roe v Wade did not start
the war, and overturning it (or having a Constitutional amendment) will not
end it.  This is not a war of the kind that Adm Yamamoto made a business of.

I personally think that the "us vs them" rhetoric, and the hostile imagery of
a war, is counterproductive in a social ethics situation like we have with
abortion (or drugs or whatever else).  But if you want to see this as a war,
you'll have to ask yourself: how is it going to end?  How will you know when
you've won?  Will that victory really solve the problem, or will it just make
the problem go and hide?

Do you really think that this is a war you can win somehow?  Do you think
it will end with a Constitutional Amendment?  Will that make the National
Abortion Rights Action League give up and go home, never to bother you again?
Prohibition was overturned; the 18th Amendment did not end the fight over
alcohol.  The fighting over abortion is not going to end if the political
dickering happens to go your way next time.  Adm Yamamoto knew that the war he
helped start would not end with the surrender of the US.  You seem to believe
that the battle you have engaged can be won -- that somehow, you will achieve
the surrender of your opponents.  The battle can't be won; your opponents
will not surrender.

If what you want is for the fighting to END and the problem to be solved, you
need to start looking at this as something besides a war.  What perspective
would be better?  I dunno.  But if you see it as a `war' in the traditional
"shoot until one side gives up" sense that Adm Yamamoto was involved with,
the problem will never go away and the fighting will never stop.


Darren F Provine / kilroy@gboro.rowan.edu
"Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without
 having a `War' on it?" -- Rich Thomson
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