resident_evil
Senator
I recommend the following for honest and civil debate ( I promise:0).
Actually start with this post (8th post down in this thread) and then come pack to the top if you wish.
https://www.politicaljack.com/threads/this-is-offered-up-to-the-intellectually-curious.60668/#post-873948
Recycling the Myths of Abortion History
August 5, 2008
Joseph W. Dellapenna
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2008/08/recycling-the-myths-of-abortio
In April 2006, I published Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History—a book that, in the pages of First Things, Michael Uhlmann called the “definitive work” that utterly discredited the history in Justice Harry Blackmun’s majority opinion in Roe v. Wade. Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History was favorably reviewed in a number of other journals, all by reviewers who could be characterized as pro-life, even though some of them noted that I am not pro-life, at least not in the narrow sense of endorsing the view that life begins at conception.
The book met complete silence, however, from those who support free choice for abortion—at least until last fall, when Carla Spivack, an assistant professor of law at Oklahoma City University, published “To ‘Bring Down the Flowers’: The Cultural Context of Abortion History in Early Modern England,” in the William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law.
Spivack asserts that Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History “relies on a serious misreading of cases and ignorance of the relevant historical, medical, and cultural context.” She goes so far as to claim that I “falsif[y] the record.” These would be devastating conclusions, if they were true.
Unfortunately, Spivack is wrong on all counts. Instead of describing or recounting the evidence I presented or the analyses I developed, she simply recycles the new orthodox abortion history that my book sets out to refute. Spivak dismisses my work by characterizing its various conclusions as mere assertions, apparently without support even in my book, while indicating that others who have studied the point under discussion have reached different conclusions. A reader would never guess from reading Spivack’s article that I not only presented considerable evidence and careful analysis to support my own conclusions, but that (unlike Spivack) I presented, often at great length, the evidence and analysis of the others to whom she refers, and I set out to demonstrate, in detail, that their evidence does not support their conclusions. Spivack so fails to engage the contents of my book that I found myself wondering how much of my book she had actually read.
Actually start with this post (8th post down in this thread) and then come pack to the top if you wish.
https://www.politicaljack.com/threads/this-is-offered-up-to-the-intellectually-curious.60668/#post-873948
Recycling the Myths of Abortion History
August 5, 2008
Joseph W. Dellapenna
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2008/08/recycling-the-myths-of-abortio
In April 2006, I published Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History—a book that, in the pages of First Things, Michael Uhlmann called the “definitive work” that utterly discredited the history in Justice Harry Blackmun’s majority opinion in Roe v. Wade. Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History was favorably reviewed in a number of other journals, all by reviewers who could be characterized as pro-life, even though some of them noted that I am not pro-life, at least not in the narrow sense of endorsing the view that life begins at conception.
The book met complete silence, however, from those who support free choice for abortion—at least until last fall, when Carla Spivack, an assistant professor of law at Oklahoma City University, published “To ‘Bring Down the Flowers’: The Cultural Context of Abortion History in Early Modern England,” in the William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law.
Spivack asserts that Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History “relies on a serious misreading of cases and ignorance of the relevant historical, medical, and cultural context.” She goes so far as to claim that I “falsif[y] the record.” These would be devastating conclusions, if they were true.
Unfortunately, Spivack is wrong on all counts. Instead of describing or recounting the evidence I presented or the analyses I developed, she simply recycles the new orthodox abortion history that my book sets out to refute. Spivak dismisses my work by characterizing its various conclusions as mere assertions, apparently without support even in my book, while indicating that others who have studied the point under discussion have reached different conclusions. A reader would never guess from reading Spivack’s article that I not only presented considerable evidence and careful analysis to support my own conclusions, but that (unlike Spivack) I presented, often at great length, the evidence and analysis of the others to whom she refers, and I set out to demonstrate, in detail, that their evidence does not support their conclusions. Spivack so fails to engage the contents of my book that I found myself wondering how much of my book she had actually read.
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