The Spearhead and its commenters have come under fire from the usual suspects for being too strident, uncompromising and angry, and for not behaving like obedient little boys. Of course, this is a typical political ploy — point out your opponents’ anger as proof that they are the bad guys. Never mind the fact that many, many men have every reason to be angry; that doesn’t matter. What counts is how slick you are and how reasonable you can appear, even if what you’re proposing is unconscionable. For example, it never ceased to amaze me how people such as Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz could dispassionately argue for war, despite the fact that it meant that tens of thousands of entirely innocent people would die. From a moral standpoint, this seems worse than some fire-breathing jingoist screaming for national revenge. There’s something about dispassionate arguments for killing that is extraordinarily creepy.

Following the shooting of Arizona Representative Giffords, the hue and cry from the left about “violent rhetoric” was deafening. It calmed down a bit when the shooter, Jared Loughner, turned out to be obsessed and likely insane, but not particularly motivated by political rhetoric. Actually, the conspiracies he ascribed to were characterized not by how emotionally compelling they were, but rather by being very odd, like him. So it wasn’t Bill O’Reilly or Glenn Beck who motivated Loughner to pull the trigger. No, it was something that had gone wrong in his mind, much like what motivated John Hinckley to attempt Ronald Reagan’s assassination.

But again, it didn’t really matter whether or not political opponents were responsible for Loughner’s murderous spree — the goal was to dominate the debate. And this is exactly what men are facing from feminists today. Whether or not we’ve done anything wrong, and whether or not we’ve advocated for truly atrocious things as many of our opponents have (for example Valenti’s suggestion that we get rid of presumption of innocence), we’re supposed to be ashamed and follow their rules concerning what we can and cannot express, and how we can express it.

I’d like to make a comparison to another debate that is occurring right now amongst feminists and their ideological allies. It directly concerns feminists, including one who is a registered member of Jessica Valenti’s Feministing site and a rather prominent Philadelphia-area activist. It also concerns a horrific series of crimes that are coming to light, so sensitive readers, or people who are just having a bad day might want to hit the back button on their browser and come back to finish the article only when they are in a good, confident mood. Yes, it is that bad.

William Saletan of Slate, a liberal Republican who is essentially pro-choice and has criticized the Catholic Church for alleged misogyny, recently wrote a piece about Dr. Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortionist who has been charged with murder for killing seven viable babies and one patient. In Saletan’s essay, he questions the feminists’ uncompromising position on abortion. The details of the case are disgusting. In fact, they are downright nauseating.

Because many of his patients were very late in their pregnancies, Gosnell would induce birth, delivering living, breathing babies. In one instance, a baby was left crying on a table for 20 minutes before he killed it. Gosnell ended the babies’ lives by a process he called “snipping.” This consisted of stabbing the child in the neck with scissors and severing its spine. Gosnell routinely flouted the law, fudging the reports on fetal age in order to abort babies beyond the legally-imposed 24 week limit, which is a very generous timeframe. In one documented case the child was nearly six pounds — within the normal range for a full-term birth. Gosnell made a joke about that baby boy, saying he was big enough to walk him to the bus stop.

Although investigators initially raided him for illegal prescriptions, they found a house of horrors in his clinic:

What they found, according to the report, was “filthy, deplorable, and disgusting”: Blood on the floor. The stench of urine. Cat feces on the stairs. Semi-conscious women moaning in the waiting or revovery rooms, covered with blood-stained blankets. Broken equipment. Blocked or locked exits.

[...]

investigators found fetal bodies and body parts in garbage bags, plastic bozes and bottles at the clinic.

The grand jury report is much worse. It includes pictures, so please don’t look at it unless you have a strong stomach. From the report:

Among the relatively few cases that could be specifically documented, one was Baby Boy A. His 17-year-old mother was almost 30 weeks pregnant – seven and a half months – when labor was induced. An employee estimated his birth weight as approaching six pounds. He was breathing and moving when Dr. Gosnell severed his spine and put the body in a plastic shoebox for disposal. The doctor joked that this baby was so big he could “walk me to the bus stop.” Another, Baby Boy B, whose body was found at the clinic frozen in a one-gallon spring-water bottle, was at least 28 weeks of gestational age when he was killed. Baby C was moving and breathing for 20 minutes before an assistant came in and cut the spinal cord, just the way she had seen Gosnell do it so many times.

Although there is room for debate amongst ordinary, decent people concerning early-term abortion and whether or not it is morally acceptable, I don’t think anyone with a conscience or a shred of decency could condone what Dr. Gosnell was doing in that Philadelphia clinic. And this is where feminists come into the picture.

In his article, Saletan highlights statements made by Steph Herold and Susan Yanow, a couple of prominent feminists who recently wrote a piece defending abortion at any time during pregnancy.

Saletan includes the following quote from the two in his article:

Women have no obligation to make a decision as soon as they possibly can. The only obligation women have is to take the time they need to make the decision that is right for them. Don’t we believe that women are moral decision makers, and carefully consider their options when faced with an unwanted pregnancy? Don’t we reject the anti-choice rhetoric that women make the decision to have an abortion callously? The pro-choice movement takes a step backward when we judge that a woman has taken too long to make what may be a life-changing decision. Shouldn’t we want women to take the time they need to make the best decision, regardless of where they are in the pregnancy?

The gist of the feminists’ argument comes down to the idea that women have “moral agency,” which is interpreted by feminists to mean that whatever she chooses to do with her child is a moral choice that is beyond criticism. This is really the heart of feminist ideology: anything a woman wants, at any time, is “moral.”

From Steph Herold and Susan Yanow’s response to Saletan:

When leaders in the pro-choice movement start to speculate about restricting abortion rights to appease the anti-choice movement, they have lost sight of what the pro-choice movement is about: respecting women as moral decision makers.

[...]

An early choice to end an unwanted pregnancy, while medically easier and to some more politically palatable is not necessarily a better or more moral choice. Women deserve to have all the time they need in order to make the best pregnancy decision for themselves and for their families, even if this means having a later abortion.

[...]

The only obligation women have is to take the time they need to make the decision that is right for them. Don’t we believe that women are moral decision makers, and carefully consider their options when faced with an unwanted pregnancy?

After looking at the grand jury report, which was so bad that I don’t think I’ll be able to eat for hours, it’s surreal to see these feminists arguing that killing viable infants at a late stage of pregnancy is “moral.” But this is exactly what they are doing. They may call it “abortion,” but when you kill a squirming, crying baby with a pair of scissors, that’s murder.

Yes, these feminists are openly condoning murder, and calling it a “moral choice.” Not only murder as in “in my opinion, it’s murder,” but murder as in you will do time in prison for it today, decades after Roe v. Wade.

Given this fact, how far would we have to go at The Spearhead to match their own rhetoric? Well, if you’re going to compare apples to apples, I suppose I’d have to write an essay stating that men, having human rights like women, are “moral decision makers,” and if they want to blow a feminist’s head off with a shotgun they are simply making a “moral choice” that we ought to honor. And if, after performing this procedure, they chose to freeze her corpse in a water cooler, who am I to judge?

Of course, we never go that far at The Spearhead. I draw the line when it comes to killing or maiming people. But does that stop the feminists? Of course not. How could you expect people who count enthusiastic and outspoken supporters of murder among their ranks to exercise any restraint or fight fair? The thing is, they will do and say whatever they can in an effort to shut us up, so they can escalate their own rhetoric and promote their plans without any opposition. They’ve already done away with constitutional due process through abuse of restraining orders and DV laws, millions of men have been ruined through no fault of their own, children are deprived of fathers en masse, and now they’re supporting baby killing. I’m convinced that the next thing they will push for is outright slavery — there’s already a good deal of support amongst feminists for putting fathers who are in arrears on child support in penal labor camps.

It is precisely for this reason that toning down our rhetoric is the last thing we should worry about. Our opponents’ concept of morality simply isn’t the same as ours. To them, objective morality does not exist, and we’d have to abandon it as well were we to play by their rules. In other words, if we were reasonable and “understanding” toward them, we’d be their accomplices.

At this point, given what feminists have done and how much farther they want to take things, we would be making a grave mistake in compromising with them or giving any ground at all — this is not the time for appeasement. If anything, we need to turn up the volume and fight them all the harder. It is the moral thing to do.