Chicago Columnist: Tobacco Bad, Abortion Good

-By Warner Todd Huston

A columnist from a Chicago suburban paper has equated smoking to abortion in order to explain away her support of an abortion mill struggling to open in Aurora, Illinois. Saying that since smoking is legal, and it “kills” people, why shouldn’t abortion be legal, we find her reasoning is strained and absurd. If there’s a more ridiculous comparison out there, I’d like to see it. Following her tortured logic, we should outlaw everything that might kill someone if we also outlaw abortion — which WILL kill someone.

There are so many specious arguments that this supporter of infanticide tries to use in this article to support abortion that it must spin the head of most readers. The whole thing has a feel like the author of the column, Joni Hirsch-Blackman, is throwing just about everything she can think of against a wall to see what sticks quite regardless of any logic or sense to it all.

After simple-mindedly explaining that “Tobacco kills,” which in reality is not a literal truth because often times it does not, Hirsch-Blackman explains that, while she “sneers” at smokers, she would never protest against it because it is legal.

It’s tempting, but I’d never harass the people who go in there or try to have the store shut down — even though the whole purpose for the place being there is to sell something that eventually will kill whoever is using it.

Tobacco is legal and the store has a right to be there. So instead, I, and others who feel the way I do, try to educate people about the dangers of tobacco.

Really? She and her fellows would never harass smokers and try to get their right to smoke taken away from them? Odd, since she and like-minded friends in the state have succeeded in getting the State of Illinois to pass a smoking ban in public places that starts just this year.

Why is it OK to protest and use the courts and the coercion endemic with the law to ban smoking which only might cause varied health problems yet we should leave the faux right of abortion alone merely because it is “legal?”

Talk about tortured logic. And her lack of sense gets worse as the article progresses.

Hirsch-Blackman praises a website put up by Planned Parenthood because they claim they wish to “protect the community.”

From Planned Parenthood’s Aurora location Web site: “At Planned Parenthood, we believe the preventative services this health care center will offer will do more in one day to promote responsible family planning and prevent the need for abortion than our opponents will do in a lifetime of protests.”

I wonder if there is anywhere on the PP website where they admit to the proven fact that they tell under-aged, young girls who have been raped not to report the attack just so PP can get in another abortion statistic?

My guess is no.

Next our intrepid reporter goes all a’gush over a recent Daily Herald advertisement supporting the opening of the abortion that was ostensibly placed by a gaggle of wayward pastors and ministers.

Perhaps surprisingly, this ad was placed by a long list of religious leaders. Yes, religious leaders supporting a Planned Parenthood clinic. Some would have you believe that anyone tolerant of such thing must be a heathen.

Her reductionist hyperbole aside, it is well known that thousands of religious Christians support the death cult of abortion. Did Hirsch-Blackman, a purported reporter, just discover this fact?

But, here is another factoid that Hirsch-Blackman tries not to make much of: the ad was bought and paid for by Planned Parenthood. It wasn’t an unconnected and disinterested group of local ministers that rose to the debate and contracted for the ad at all.

Does Hirsch-Blackman not suspect a bias?

Apparently the “reporter” in her was untouched by the obvious conflict of interest with this advocacy ad.

Then Hirsch-Blackman flies off on an odd tangent. She seems to imagine that abortion supporters who have been known to mount giant protests as well as unwanted lawsuits that really represent no one’s interest directly are managing to “co-exist peacefully” but that religious people against abortion are bigots who are somehow destroying our communities.

People whose religious beliefs differ are often able to co-exist peacefully. Mormons who don’t drink alcohol don’t harass bar owners or patrons. Jews who keep Kosher don’t picket or protest places that sell cheeseburgers. Muslims who fast during Ramadan do not attack those who eat. It’s not for them, but it’s legal. Why can’t religious people who oppose abortion behave in the same way?

Hows does that old saying go? “The pot calling the kettle black?”

Then she amusingly equates the silence of local support for this baby killing mill to an apparent support of the place.

Our community. Two things have surprised me: how much press and interest this has generated outside of our community and how little I hear people in our community talking about this issue.

Community members should speak up. Don’t let extremists from around the country make decisions in your neighborhood.

Well, Mrs. Hirsch-Blackman, couldn’t it be that no one in the community is opposing those who are protesting this abortion mill because they don’t want it there in the first place? Couldn’t it be that they agree with the protests so they see no reason to get involved further? How does local community silence somehow mean that they want it there or that they want the protests stopped?

One amusing thing about this whole column of hers, however, is her claims that abortion protesters don’t speak for “the whole community.” Yet, she arrives to the rescue and imagines that she, herself, somehow does speak for the community even as she admits it is largely silent on the whole mess!

Wow is THAT an argument the logic of which will cause whiplash!

Lastly, it is telling that Hirsch-Blackman ignores the lies Planned Parenthood told so that they could open the thing in the first place. If this abortion mill was such a great idea and Planned Parenthood was so proud of its black art, why did they have to hide behind false front companies and misleading claims to the city in order to get their “clinic” opened?

It’s another sad attempt by the MSM to turn logic on it’s head and paint people who want to save the lives of millions of children as the evil here.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, men’snewsdaily.com and americandaily.com among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a guest on several radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston


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