08 March 2012

Two evils for the price of one: abortion and pro-lifers

I think that wilful abortion is evil, and a violation of human rights. But there are times when I think pro-lifers are just as evil, especially when I come across things like this, found via a link on Facebook.

The person who posted it on Facebook introduced the link by saying "The Obama administration rules that stock holdes aren't really owners and have no real say in the operation of the business they hold shares in."

I was curious and had a look at the site.

Obama agency rules Pepsi use of cells derived from aborted fetus ‘ordinary business’ | LifeSiteNews.com:
In a decision delivered Feb 28th, President Obama’s Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled that PepsiCo’s use of cells derived from aborted fetal remains in their research and development agreement with Senomyx to produce flavor enhancers falls under “ordinary business operations.”
I became curious about "President Obama's agency", and discovered that the site that mentioned it couldn't even get the name right. I think they were referring to this:

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (frequently abbreviated SEC) is a federal agency[2] which holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets in the United States. In addition to the 1934 Act that created it, the SEC enforces the Securities Act of 1933, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 and other statutes. The SEC was created by section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (now codified as 15 U.S.C. 78d and commonly referred to as the 1934 Act).
Was Obama even alive in 1934, when this particular agency was created? Will it cease to exist when his term of office ends? This really is a prize piece of vicious and malicious misreporting, and with such standards of dishonesty and lack of integrity I would not trust anything found on that site.

Yes, I'd boycott Pepsi too, if it were available and if the report were true, but it is wrapped up with so much deliberate misreporting that I wouldn't trust anything in that story.

Fifty years ago folk singer Jeremy Taylor did a rap piece called Joburg talking blues, in the course of which the supposedly American narrator said, "In America there's two things we can't stand: the one's segregation, and the other's niggers."

When I read pieces like this, I feel a bit like that narrator. There are two things I can't stand. The one's abortion, and the other's pro-lifers.

4 comments:

James Higham said...

There is this constant tendency, I believe aided and abetted, to polarize and become mutually exclusive.

Obviously there's no halfway house on abortion or pregnancy but in general, people almost run into "camps' and then start attacking one another, rather than laying all the facts on the table and finding the truth from there.

Fr. Andrew said...

Just to address the technical point being made here:

While it is true that the SEC was not created by our current president, the SEC (like most Federal agencies) is under his authority and its chairman is appointed by him. It is part of his administration and subject to his policy priorities.

It is common in American political discourse to refer to these various Federal agencies by reference to the sitting president or his administration in general, most especially when distinguishing those agencies in their forms under various presidents. One can watch these agencies take on quite different characteristics when they come under a new president.

So there is nothing particularly unusual about this site's usage of "President Obama’s Security and Exchange Commission (SEC)" (other than that Security ought to be plural). It is indeed "his" in a very real sense. He is responsible for its actions.

Steve Hayes said...

Is this a cultural difference then?

In South Africa I don't think anyone would refer to "Zuma's Reserve Bank" or "Zuma's SABC", though there is plenty of criticism of the actions of those bodies.

We might say a government body was "Zuma's" if it was established on his watch (cf "Belisha Beacons" in the UK -- if anyone remembers them, but I would imagine even fewer people would remember who Belisha was).

So we might say "Roosevelt's Securities and Exchange Commission".

Fr. Andrew said...

I think it is indeed a cultural difference.

In the U.S., these agencies are part of the Executive Branch of government and therefore under the president's authority. He's responsible for what they do.

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