Every once in a while a silly concept crosses my mind. Something to which there is no possible way to find a real answer but is intriguing nonetheless. As a conservative, I wonder how outnumbered we would be if it weren’t for Roe v Wade. Personally, I consider this bill unfortunate due to all of the babies that have been killed and, regarding social injustice, all of the people who were never given a chance to make an impact on this world, a quality we each have. But the vicious irony is that liberals are generally the group who support abortion (obviously there are pro choice conservatives and pro life liberals) and, as a result, keep their numbers down when it comes to the voting age.
You would think that after 37 years, someone would have been smart enough to step up and say “Wait a minute people, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Every time we speak out in favor of abortion and its funding, we are flushing another future voter down the toilet. Perhaps we should just back off a bit and spend more money on indoctrinating these babies after they’re born.” But NooOoo! That would be too simple. And we all know that a liberal must complicate things in order to be functioning properly.
Imagine not having a 1994 Republican Sweep due to the fact that Liberals would be in such a majority that it wouldn’t have been a possibility. Let’s go back further to 1988. Is it possible to have actually had a President Dukakis? What about the Gore/Bush debacle? Florida wouldn’t have been a factor and the vast majority of us would have still never heard about a “hanging chad”. Dubya would’ve been known mostly only in Texas as an ex baseball owner and snot-nosed Yale brat and probably not even Governor.
Not unlike how the pagans used to sacrifice their first born to the sun god, the modern day liberal incinerates their unborn with saline solution or disassembles them limb by limb with sanitized instruments in the name of “Choice” and for their progressive political causes. All the while exacting a massacre of future soldiers who would have possibly dominated the American landscape. It is no surprise that when they finally take control of Washington that they cram cotton in their ears, don blindfolds and sprint hard toward their objectives despite public outcries to the contrary.
We have institutions like Planned Parenthood who is one of the most unethical and controversial on the planet raking in the dough from abortion procedures yet, from their vantage point, can’t seem to perform enough of them for their satisfaction. But at the same time, they have unwittingly become a slaughter factory against their own causes. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger – a proponent for eugenics, by the way – must be losing her smug smirk as she realizes that, though her intention to depopulate the planet is still relatively successful, the wrong people are being wiped out. I can only wonder if her corpse would like to reach out of her tomb, grab her trusty crystal ball, and report back to headquarters every conservative fetus that accompanies its mother. However, as stated earlier, the majority of women who enter a clinic are liberal so it would make little difference anyway.
It seems as if the battle between Roe and Wade may not be as potent as the battle between post born and pre born liberals. The latter has continued for a long time with no end in sight. And both sides are losing.
The 2012 Presidential Election is fast approaching
The GOP race is now a field of 4 with only Romney, Gingrich, Paul, & Santorum still standing. Who will be the next candidate to exit the race & who will emerge as the eminent GOP nominee?
Follow us on Twitter & join our 2012 election FaceBook page for updates & new blog articles.
Contact us if you are passionate about politics & want to blog with us.
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Ben,
Statistics don’t lie and neither do the number of children in foster homes. You are the exception my friend.
While private adoption may be a bit of a racket-I agree with you there- there are enough children currently without a home to go to every family that is able to accept the fianancial and emotional resposibility. There just aren’t enough healthy infants.
Maybe some of the families who are looking for children could foster- there is a chronic shortage of them and they don’t cost tens of thousands of dollars. The state pays you. But that is not the “perfect family” that people are paying tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars for…
To get a true picture of the families who would be willing to adopt an otherwise unwanted child, one needs to look no further than the massive and interminable waiting list at the adoption agencies around the country. The reason so many children are being adopted from foreign countries is that despite the expense, red-tape and required travel, it’s simply easier to adopt overseas than it is right here in America.
I know this to be a fact because, in 2005, my wife and I, after 12 yrs of marriage and unable to have children of our own, decided to adopt, only to face interminable waiting lists at the 7 agencies with which we applied. The wait varied from 3 1/2 to 5+ yrs w/ no guarantee that we would even get a child in the end.
In 2008, we were approached by a woman in our church whose daughter was pregnant (at the age of 35) for the 1st time and unwilling to raise the child herself. She refused to even consider abortion, and had decided to put the child up for adoption. Had it not been for that, we would either still be on a waiting list somewhere or else have given up entirely on our dream of having a child of our own.
There are thousands of couples who would be willing to adopt – regardless of race, color, creed, disability, etc – if only more women would at least consider giving up their child for adoption.
Having successfully adopted a child, I can say from experience that the process is mind-boggling and is nothing more than a money maker for the attorneys. Of the $12,859 we spent, $1,200 went to the birth parents to help with living expenses until she could go back to work and a whopping $650 were fees paid to the state. The remainder – approx $12,000 went to help enrich the attorneys (we had to hire 3 – one for us, one for the birth parents, and one for the baby). Our attorney was paid over $9,000, their attorney was paid $2,2500 and the baby’s attorney about $500.
Surely there is something that could be done to make adoption easier and less expensive in this country. We aren’t rich, and had it not been for my in-laws financing the bulk of the adoption, we would never have been able to pull it off.
There are many families in our situation. They have a lot of love to give and would sincerely treasure a child (or perhaps another child) in their home.
Eric,
And what about the women who want to give the child up for adoption and the father says no, so she must keep it?
How many men, if the woman said “Okay, you don’t want me to have the abortion so I won’t have an abortion, but you have to raise it” would take that baby? I don’t even think they have statistics for that because it is so rare…Look at the statitics of women who have an abortion because the father DOESN’T want the baby and she would have sole responsibility for carrying and raising the child.
Drew,
Skydiving and extrreme sports are things are body tells us not to do- sex is not one of them. Our bodies are designed for reproduction and resisting the urge is going aginst what our bodies are designed to do. There is a difference. I’m not providing excuses, I’m making a point that it is not as simple or cut and dry as you might have it seem. It is simplistic to just tell people they shouldn’t do it and expect things to chnge, or that unplanned pregnency is simply laziness. It is a lot more complicated than that.
While you can make a man fiscally responsible for the child he helped conceive, that does not negate the hardships of raising a child without a partner. Not woman is lucky enough, as I was, to have a supportive network of friends and family like I did to be there for me and my son. And even if a woman gives the child up for adoption, child support only comes into play AFTER the child is born. What about the support she needs during the pregnancy? Ask your wife or mother what pregnancy would have been like if she had to do it alone. Better yet, you can ask me since I did it. I can tell you, it ain’t easy but it was worth it for me because I was going to have and keep my son and was lucky enough to be able to put a network in place. My situation is the EXCEPTION for most women who abort, not the norm.
You say that “Without the intervention of a human hand, the fetus will, in an overwhelmingly vast majority of cases, result in a viable, living child.” A mother supplies a heck of a lot more than a helping hand. The fetus cannot survive without her-period. You cannot take a fetus outside the womb and have it live. But she should have no choice in accepting responsibility and performing that role in good faith?
Eric,
There are other situations besides rape or incest, which you are correct in saying are rare, that would make a full-term preganancy, child birth and child bearing a form of hell. There are so many other scenarios, far too many to go into here, that make the choice to discontinue a pregnancy FAR more than “just don’t feel like having a baby.” You simplify a very diffucult situation and make it sound like a choice about getting up early on a Saturday moring or choosing to sleep in. But since you have never been in that situation, you wouldn’t know.
One in four women have had an abortion- you know at least one woman you are close to and think is a quality person, who has had one and unless she told you, you would go on thinking she was a good person and not a lazy one. Simplifying the situation is all too easy but it gives you no understanding about what makes a woman choose that action and what needs to be done to allow her to choose differently. Not all women who abort are lazy, slutty, easy, selfish, a rape victim or a victim of incest. They have one thing in common- for whatever reason they find themselves to be in a situation that does not allow them to carry a child to full term and they are pregnant. That is about all you can say in common about them.
The thing I was asking in my comment above all is- where is the thought about the societal consequences of making abortion illegal. To simply outlaw it without addressing them would be like what happened when we outlawed alcohol. We made a decision based on morality alone without thought of the consequences and got deeply entrenched organized crime that has stayed with us to this day. Eventually we had to reverse the amendment becuase it failed so miserably. Maybe we should learn from our mistakes when it comes to legislating morality. As I said, morals are based on religious beliefs and we have freedom of religion here. If an abortion is an abomination in the eyes of God and people wither don’t believe in God or are willing to take the ir chances with the judgment of God, then who are we to judge. If you are morally opposed to abortion, the answer is simple- DON’T HAVE ONE. Problem solved.
Pro-life scientists have been trying to prove for years that a fetus can be classified as “alive,” that life begins at conception. For much of the early part of a woman’s pregnancy, the human fetus is nearly gentically identical to swine and rat foetus, certainly at the stage when most women have abortions, to the point that they are substituted for the human fetus for testing purposes. I think it should then be a crime to kill swine foetus or to kill a pregnant rat, becuase you are then killing something identical to what is growing in a woman’s womb. At that point in time, a fetus cannot survie without the mother, even with helkp. It is totally dependent on her for life and so she bears the total responsibility for its existance. No one else can take that responsibility, so she has the right to decide if she wants that responsibility.
Do I think abortion is ugly and distasteful? Yes, I do. But especially since becoming a mother, I realize the importance of a mother being mentally and emotionally ready for her child. I see the difference a quality and loving mother makes in the life of a child. We see the evidence of when this readiness and love is not there on our streets, in our prisons, our foster homes- and those are only the ones that we see. There are countless more in homes across this nation that are hidden from view. Is it fair for a stranger to arbitrarily consign a child to that fate for reason that have nothing to do with the individaul situation at hand? Isn’t that playing God? Unless those who would force this situation are willing to step in and take responsibility for the fruit of their mandate, then their mandate is bunk.
Sure, there are stories where an unwanted pregnancy turns into a wonderful and happy story- I’m living one- but I also know that there are far more that don’t turn out that way. I had a CHOICE and CHOSE to have my son on my own. It was not forced on me one way or the other. I had the ability to DECIDE if I was ready and decide that I was.
Let a woman decide for herself what she is and isn’t ready for. If a woman is not ready to be a mother, then she is not a suitable parent or caretaker for the life inside her.
Drew,
“I know it’s a higher burden on women to deal with a pregnancy, the man can simply “walk away” – while the woman takes the health risks and economic ramifications associated with her choice to have sex and the unexpected resultant pregnancy.”
Dude, there have been (and are) a plethora of men who are on the short end of stick in several ways:
(1) If they want the woman to have an abortion and she wants to keep it, he must rear it. I happen to agree with this but he still has no say in the matter.
(2) If he wants the woman to keep the baby and promises to be fully responsible and accountable to her and the baby but she wants to have an abortion, he has absolutely no say in the matter.
(3) A woman can choose to not mother her child either by having an abortion or by giving the baby up for adoption but if she wants the man to father the child, he does not have the same choice to not father the baby.
Laura,
Slavery and war have existed long before recorded history as well and yet there too were important liberal civil rights causes.
I sympathise with the plight of women who are pregnant and burdened by financial strain or relationship problems, single pregnant teens, for example, whatever.
I don’t mean to paint with a brush that’s too wide but I think you’re ignoring the issue of choice and responsibility. Getting pregnant is really not something that happens “by accident” most of the time. It’s simply a risk people are willing to take.
When people sky-dive or rock climb or bungee jump, for example, they take a risk, it excites them. It’s a rush, it’s dangerous. No one wants to die but it’s clear they are taking a significant risk of falling to their death when engaging in high risk behavior. When an accident does occur, people in polite society don’t say “well he should have known that could happen,” but they do say, “that’s why I don’t skydive.”
For the same reason, people who get pregnant have (generally) consented to an activity which comes with certain risks. One of them is pregnancy.
I know it’s a higher burden on women to deal with a pregnancy, the man can simply “walk away” – while the woman takes the health risks and economic ramifications associated with her choice to have sex and the unexpected resultant pregnancy. But that is the risk nonetheless for women. Men face other risks. Men go to war more than women, for example, and face death for the sake of valor. When a boat goes down in the ocean, the women and children get on the life-boat first.
Men face, at the very least, the risks of being financially responsible for a share of the child’s upbringing. If you find the financial burden to be unfairly distributed or enforced in our culture, that’s a different issue.
I would rather we had more live poor children rather than essentially euthanizing the poorer ones. And it IS euthanasia. For pro-lifers, sometimes it’s easy to get caught up with outrage and start calling abortion “murder,” and I think that’s unnecessary.
But it certainly is killing. Without the intervention of a human hand, the fetus will, in an overwhelmingly vast majority of cases, result in a viable, living child. This is undeniable because it’s the entire *point* of getting an abortion! Without the abortion a child would result. Therefore it is killing, ending a human life. A life *can’t* exist before fertilization, and once pregnancy is identified life almost certainly will exist, therefore willfully ending a pregnancy is ending of a human life; killing.
In my opinion, abortion is an unwise, impractical, immoral, unethical, and imprudent practice, and I’m very sorry that anyone ever convinced you and other Americans otherwise and you’ve vested your narrative in it. I don’t say this to insult you, honestly. I’m not an advocate of prosecuting women for the practice, but that’s how I feel about it.
I speak up for the poor and the immigrants and the imprisoned, and the unborn, and anyone else who is under-represented. This is my nature, I am liberal.
Laura,
“It happens among single and married women, just like both single and married women have abortions.”
and?
All the statements you are making are obviously based on the fact that you don’t think a human is viable until after it is born. You apparently missed J Byron’s and Ben’s points that unjustifiable and “justifiable” murder are only a difference of a few minutes. There are babies being born earlier than ever before thanks to modern technology.
Many of us have had difficult lives. Some have been the victims of extreme poverty, domestic abuse, public ridicule, etc and though some of us may have encountered a time in their lives when they even considered ending it all, most of those same people (based on personal conversations) have not only overcome the adversity but have actually used it to build character and be stronger people, are glad to be alive today, and are making significant contributions to society. Who are we to sit in God’s seat and assume what is going to happen to them and/or any damaging effects that existence might have? I am in no way judging a woman’s desperation or unfortunate circumstance and/or her strong temptation for seeking an abortion. But I have a problem with pseudo-benevolent organizations like PP who, despite their sweet talk, count on performing as many abortions as possible for both revenue and Margaret Sanger’s original embrace of the concept of eugenics. This means that though they pretend to be a place to present options, they really aren’t.
There are definitely pro-lifers out there who treat post-born people like garbage. But that hypocrisy doesn’t detract from the things I mentioned above or in my article and it is, frankly, shameful how someone would attempt to make one have anything to do with the other. Millions of people a year are never even given the chance to make their mark on this world. Though there are obviously some cases of rape and incest, this constant claim is fallible due to two reasons:
(1) There are tons of stories where the woman has had the baby anyway and the baby has grown up to become a loved family member and responsible adult who has done great things;
(2) The percentage of rape and incest cases is so small compared to a bigger picture comprised of those who “just don’t feel like having a baby”.
Since science has proven that we are made up of 46 chromosomes, I would challenge you to find another clump of cells anywhere in your body with a similar genetic code. Whether you choose to agree or not with when life begins, you must consider these things.
“…you won’t stop abortion–it has existed since before recorded history.”
Kind of a strange statement. How could we ever know this to be true one way or the other since nobody wrote it down?
Another interesting statistic that puts a touch of reality on the argument,”Well they should have used birth control”… 50% of all pregnancies in this country are unplanned. So 50% of the pregnancies in this country, not live births–pregnancies resulted from lack of birth control or failure of birth control. It happens among single and married women, just like both single and married women have abortions.
Has anybody asked what will become of all these children if the reason why the mother has made the very difficult choice to abort is because she does not have the capability to take care of that child or she will be abused, thrown out on the street or otherwise penalized if she does? Are the white families who hold prayer vigils going to take in that black, sick or meth-addicted baby? Is this nation prepared for the staggering costs of taking care of these children and the court costs for the mothers that kill, harm or abandon these children they are not equipped to be a mother of? Are the same people here who complain about the “welfare state” ready to open their wallets to help these mothers take care of these children that they know they can’t or to support those children in the foster care system or orphanages? Funny, no one seems to talk about support for all that when they talk about outlawing abortion. Doesn’t it occur to you that if a woman is able to walk into a clinic and make that kind of decision, she already knows in her gut that she does not have what it takes to be a good mother to that child at that point in time?
“What about the unborn children?” they ask…What about the ones that are already here? Many pro-lifers seem to care more about the unborn then they do about the abused, hungry and homeless ones that are already on this earth, that are undisputably and undeniably alive. Those children are tossed aside–”their welfare mommas never should have had them” but how many more do you think there will be without abortion?
Pro-lifers seem to think that it is an easy choice and that women skip to the clinic and go shopping or to a party afterwards. Does it ever occur to them that she does really want to have that baby or that she would if her situation was different. Do they think that requiring a woman who is not ready to have a child to carry and be responsible for a baby for 9 months until she gives birth is fair? And are you going to mandate that the father support her during this time or will she have to go it alone, even if she gives it up for adoption? I don’t think the pro-lifers give that any thought either…They act as if it is no big deal to carry a child to term and that there are no negative repercussions to a woman for simply being pregnant. Who will be there for her when she can’t perform her job but can’t get a new one because she is 7 months pregnant? Who will carry the groceries, which cost more because she needs to eat more, for her? Who will be there to rub her feet or to help her get her swollen body out of bed in the morning when her stomach is in the way, while she is carrying a child she is being forced to have? I don’t forsee a line around the door of volunteers. Which one of you will do it?
Besides, you won’t stop abortion–it has existed since before recorded history. All you will do is make quality care only affordable to those who are wealthy enough to find a good doctor willing to break the law for the right amount of money and doom poor and lower-middle income women to substandard care she can afford. When she is lying in bed sick with infection or hemmoraghing, possibly dying, but can’t go to the hospital because she could then be arrested, then what? At least when it’s a legal choice, a woman who finds herself in that very difficult place won’t have to risk infection and death and can get quality care. Or maybe some of those pro-lifers out there think that she would deserve to die. But why should her life matter? She’s not an unborn..
Since science has not proven that true life begins at conception, that it is not little more than a growth that many women’s anti-bodies attack as a foreign object, then the objection to abortion is based on moral grounds. Morality is based on religious law and we have freedom of religion here. The point of pro-choice is that if your morals and religious beliefs cause you to be opposed to abortion, then don’t have one. But if they do not, then have one. No one in this nation is FORCING women to have abortions. It is a personal choice, probably one of the toughest and most personal choices a woman will ever have to make, and she will have to deal with the consequences in a way that no man will. If she gives it sober thought and due consideration and decides that it is the best thing, then leave her alone.
Drew,
Taxpayers don’t pay for the killing of innocent babies?
Read my article I’m going to post now. I intentionally waited so Eriks article would get as much readership as possible.
Sadly, it’s a subject few care to passionately debate, cause being pro-killing babies don’t look so good when looked at closely.
Drew,
Going waaaaaaay back to your first comment. Planned Parenthood is worse than just doing abortions (which is abominable by itself). Margaret Sanger (one of Hitler’s buddies) was really into eugenics. In addition, more recently PP is sponsoring (and has consequently kidnapped) Girl Scouts of America. To make matters worse, they are now supplying the unwitting tots with sexual paraphnalia. Look it up and you’ll be able to verify that it’s true. Or you can look here at this shameless plug:
http://outragetoday.com/2010/03/17/if-you-support-the-girl-scouts-you-might-just-be-a-pedophile/
What I don’t understand is this:
In Oklahoma, a person can kill a pregnant woman and face 2 counts of murder (one for the mother and one for the unborn child).
In Oklahoma, if a person injures a pregnant woman and the unborn child dies as a result, they can still face a murder charge.
Yet, a doctor can intentionally kill an unborn child and face no consequences whatsoever.
How can you reconcile that in your mind? How does that make any sense at all???
//Act like it’s food stamps for some obese welfare collecter, that’ll get your juices flowing to do something more than “stand in common ground”. //
That was pretty stupid. Welfare recipients aren’t all fat and lazy and your stereotypical bigotry is entirely offensive.
“The day before, the baby could have been legally ripped limb from limb, but the screams would not be heard.”
Actually, the vast majority of states place very strict legal restrictions on when and why abortions can occur. There statistically very, very few abortions after the first trimester in the U.S.
“However, it’s always amazing to me, those on the left, who are pro-life, take a ho-hum, oh well stance.”
No, you’re just looking for a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist and insisting that I’ve overlooked the solution.
The Hyde Amendment, AND the Presidents latest EO both preclude Federal tax dollars from funding abortions. The only issue at hand is your faith in the existing legislation, apparently.
If you want to limit abortions legally, you’ll have to petition the STATE which has authority and jurisdiction over this issue, or the Supreme Court which has upheld it as a State issue.
But there’s some good news;
In 2007, the first year of Commonwealth Care in Mass., the number of abortions fell to 24,128, and in 2008, it fell to 23,883 — a decline of 1.5% from the 2006 level (see graph). The number of abortions among teenagers in 2008 fell to 3726, a 7.4% decline from 2006. These decreases occurred during a period of rising birth rates, from 55.6 per 1000 women 15 to 44 years of age to 56.9 per 1000 in 2006 and 57.2 per 1000 in 2007 (the latest year for which data are available from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health), and an increase in overall population (in 2008, the Massachusetts population surpassed 6.5 million for the first time, and it was nearly 6.6 million in 2009, according to the Census Bureau). The abortion rate thus declined from 3.8 per 1000 population in 2006 to 3.6 per 1000 in 2008. Overall, since 2000, the number of abortions in Massachusetts has dropped by 12% (from 27,180 to 23,883) and by nearly 36% since 1991.2 The Massachusetts abortion rate has similarly dropped by a third, from 30 per 1000 women 15 to 44 years of age in 1991 to about 20 per 1000 in 2005, with most of the decrease occurring during the late 1990s.3
Or, to put it briefly, abortions declined both in absolute numbers and on a per-capita basis. The drop was steeper for teenagers.
Now, it’s possible that Massachusetts is simply mirroring national trends, where abortions have slowly declined in reason years (with, however, an upward blip nationally in 2006). But at the very least, it seems reasonable to conclude that in the biggest, best real-life laboratory we’ve got, access to abortion – which was a covered service for Medicaid recipients and the next-lowest income tier covered by Commonwealth care – did nothing to increase the number of abortions performed.
http://kittywampus.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/a-pro-life-rejoinder-to-stupaks-stupidity/
Erik,
Thanks for raising the issue! The slaughter of babies is always a buzzkill, and often it’s easier to engage in less depressing topics.
Drew,
I respect your stance. However, it’s always amazing to me, those on the left, who are pro-life, take a ho-hum, oh well stance. If a baby (even 1 day out of the womb) were in a burning car, who among us wouldn’t risk our own life to rescue that little bundle of innocense?
We wouldn’t stand safely saying, ya know 50,000 people a year die in auto accidents, that’s a shame. And if you were unable to rescue that baby, and a fireman was just standing around, you’d cry, scream, shake him, you’d do anything to get the baby safely out of that burning car.
The day before, the baby could have been legally ripped limb from limb, but the screams would not be heard. How bout just a tad more passion toward what you say you beleive?
Act like it’s food stamps for some obese welfare collecter, that’ll get your juices flowing to do something more than “stand in common ground”.
Drew,
I don’t want to argue with you about an issue we feel the same about.
However, to say that pro life people should applaud the idea of a meaningless letter written by the most pro choice president because we like the idea is silly. Why would I applaud a meaningless act that was performed to allow the exact opposite to take place? This is not me forcing my morality upon others it is a case of others forcing me to pay for their morality. Stupak wasn’t trying to stop abortions from existing, just prevent taxpayer money from being spent rather than the women receiving the abortions. Trying to stop tax payer funding of abortion is not working contrary to the law of the land. Government funding abortion outside the military is contrary to the law of the land, or rather it was before Stupak folded.
As for not believing that Stupak would have been lionized for standing his ground- we’ll never know for sure. I do know he was praised before changing position, and I know Joe Lieberman is held in fairly high regard by conservatives for standing his ground on defense issues and Israel. Would the same be true for Stupak? We’ll never know.
As for every one being against abortion until their teenage daughter gets pregnant please google Sarah Palin. While I don’t support her, she stood her ground with her daughter and with her own pregnancy with a down syndrome child. She had two perfect examples of what abortions were legalized for and she stood her ground and lived what she preached.
And lastly, you believe that poverty is the main reason for abortions. I believe it to be a contributing factor along with a lot of others. As my original post states abortion has been pushed in black areas with saturation by Planned Parenthood and marketing to the poorer people. So the question is how big of a role does the marketing of abortion make in the general population and does the concerted effort of pro choice groups to “sell” abortions in poorer neighborhoods skew the statistics? Obviously prevention of unwanted/planned pregnancies would be the ideal and as a conservative, anti-abortion person I am comfortable with tax dollars going toward birth control and education but not abortion. To me a life exists and it is wrong to end it. I consider myself as meeting pro abortion people half way but I am called intolerant because I don’t agree with the practice of abortion and absolutely don’t want to pay for it.
BH,
But what you’re really saying is;
I don’t care about the executive order because “from what I understand” it wouldn’t trump law. And you didn’t applaud the Order – even in spirit – out of distrust, you criticized it because there was “only one picture”.
“Had he done what he said he would and not voted for the bill, he would have been lionized by the right.”
I don’t believe you. Even if the bill contained the entire Stupak amendment, you’d vilify him anyway if he voted YEA, because the bill passed and the entire goal was not to prevent tax-dollars from paying for abortions but to stop the bill entirely. Detractors weren’t chanting “change the bill,” they were chanting “kill the bill.”
This bill isn’t an excuse for those of us who are against abortion to leverage the government into passing legislation that is contrary to the law of the land as established by Roe v. Wade. You can’t “coerce” people to not get abortions by placing obstacles in their way. That’s manipulation, not legislation. If you want to make abortions inaccessible, you’ll need to petition your state who makes the laws concerning them, or petition the Supreme Court to overturn RvW.
Meanwhile, the BEST way to reduce the number of abortions performed in the US annually is to raise awareness – you’d be surprised how many people don’t know that 1.3 million abortions happen in America every year and at least 95% of them are elective, retroactive birth control. And also reduce poverty. The number one reason for abortions is poverty. Increase opportunity and financial equality, and the abortion rate will drop.
You had better get used to it, abortion is not going to become illegal in the US anytime soon. It just won’t, you’re fighting windmills. It’s a noble cause, but it’s not going to happen. There are just far too many people on both sides of the isle who don’t share our view. Everyone is against abortion until their own teenage daughter is pregnant. Personally, I would never encourage my daughter to get one no matter what, but you get my point.
It’s a great to cause to fight for but make sure your motives are right and you’re not using it to score points for the opposing team, that’s all I ask.
Drew,
I heard a lot of praise from the conservative community for Stupak’s position of not funding abortions with taxpayer money. But then at the last moment after doing dozens of interviews stating emphatically that he would not vote for the health care bill with legislative language that existed in it, he changed his mind at the last second. From what I understand a Presidential Order does not trump a law so the Presidential order that was signed in private with only one picture released cannot stop tax money from financing abortions. Stupak should have known this and Obama absolutely knew this so Stupak did not keep his word of not voting for the bill with the language that allows tax funding for abortions. Had he done what he said he would and not voted for the bill, he would have been lionized by the right. Having lied and caved he is being demonized. Their is no praise from the right because it is believed that the ban on federally funding abortions is a scam and not real. Before the agreement he Stupak was being applauded from Fox News to the internet.
Yea, abortion sucks.
Wait, did we just agree on something?
However I still think it’s a politicized issue and feel betrayed by the Republican party (as a previous single issue voter) because they use it as a platform for election and then never do anything to change the situation.
Also, changing Roe v. Wade (something not in the President’s jurisdiction) would certainly cause revolt among the majority of Americans who have been persuaded that it’s a basic civil right. And on top of that, it would be a bit ironic for conservatives who are always complaining about over-reaching Federal government to push for some sort of Federal legislation to attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade. As it stands, to the credit of the American people, almost all states have some pretty strict statues about when and why abortions can occur. I always bring this up in my conversation with fellow Liberals because it is clear evidence that there are moral and criminal implications to the whole issue that should not be ignored or glossed over.
Vast educational information campaigns must be launched to compassionately combat public perception and ignorance before any political action will happen in regard to Roe v. Wade.
Also I think it’s really crucial for pro-choice activists to take a compassionate and non-judgmental attitude toward others who have gotten the procedure or are considering it, because it certainly is a very emotional and charged issue and women caught in the middle of societies conflicting messages about abortion are victims as are the aborted children themselves.
Also I suspect your condemnation of Planned Parenthood might be a bit over-reaching. The organization does a lot of very good work but I agree with you regarding their pro-abortion stance.
Finally, I heard not a single word of praise from the conservative community regarding Stupak’s efforts, and the President’s Executive Order. The entire issue shows some acknowledgement of Americans’ conservative opinion about the issue and the ability to compromise. I know you’ll have a bunch of reasons why you still hate Obama, but conservatives are so damned partisan they can’t extend an olive branch occasionally. It comes from the Us vs. Them mentality, you guys so often think of Liberals as your enemy, and it works against your cause in my opinion.
Common ground is not a bad place to stand.
There’s a lot of work to be done here. No article that speaks of abortion is complete without a decent set of statistics about American abortion practices. Personally, I think numbers are compelling and speak for themselves.
Blowhard,
Of course it doesn’t sound absurd.
As I’ve stated in the past, I try to keep the number of characters below a certain point so that more people will be prone to read. As a result, I needed to sacrifice the expansion of the content and stick with my basic stance. It is always important and helpful for other people like you to step in and add to the conversation so that a larger picture is developed.
Erik,
Liked the article but you didn’t mention the real issue of white liberals pushing abortions on black women. Roughly half of all black pregnancies are aborted. Planned Parenthood purposely places itself disproportionately in black neighborhoods and is headed by a black woman. Race plays a much larger role in the abortion supporters mind than is openly discussed. In the end we’ll never know how many Einsteins we missed or how many Mansons we avoided. But we will always know that we took no real action to stop it. While the ending of slavery and segregation was a positive move for society–the recognition that all humans are humans and deserving of rights– abortion is the most dehumanizing practice ever put into law. We traded skin color for pre vs.post utero for defining a human. If that sounds absurd please recall that Surgeon General C. Everett Coop had been pro-choice until he heard his colleagues refer to babies born with down syndrome and other severe problems as fetus-post-utero. The writing was clearly on the wall. Also, remember the timing of civil rights legislation and the black power movement in relation to Roe vs. Wade. Black Americans had finally received real equality under law and the black power movement had whites uncomfortable if not scared. Black people couldn’t be picked on anymore so a new victim needed to be found. Bullying is sadly a part of human nature. Now through “empowerment” white urban liberals have found a way to control black population while proclaiming themselves as caring and concerned.
{ 3 trackbacks }