southpaw tackes a big one
I started this little spot last weekend, and realized that I should first make a little introduction. Big issues to follow. My name is Mark. I've spent most of my life in the Midwest, and have lived in northern CA for a year. Highs just in the 60s, but it is known to rain here in the winter. I'm not a journalist or a reporter, so what follows is strictly opinion. What else would you need to know? First-wave Boomer? Grandfather still clinging to a tennis game? Yup, left-handed, but the name has more to do with the political spectrum. Remember, I'm speaking just for myself. And thanks to son Jake for his help and encouragement.
Abortion. I've never been around one, wouldn't want to be. Told our daughters it's wrong. Is it safe? Nothing is perfectly safe, not in a medical office or a hospital, for that matter. Is it violent? I believe it is. It's not really even birth control, but the failure of birth control. Wasteful. Sad. A pity, considering that many aborted babies could have had adoptive homes.
Would you expect someone who thinks this way to favor the reversal of Roe v. Wade, or to pray nightly for a solidly pro-life Supreme Court? Nope. Not me. I believe that until we all choose something else, that we're stuck with legal abortion.
Here's why. When our friends on the Right talk about saving babies, what the are talking about is simply re-criminalizing a precedure that's now been legal for over 30 years. Making something criminal doesn't mean it won't happen since we can't simply forget the technology that makes it happen more-or-less safely. My problem with the Right is that they never talk about this. If it's a crime, then there must be a criminal. Criminals must be punished, or there's no point in having a law. So who all is guilty? The aborting mother? Sure, but what about the aborting father? The abortion providers? The parents of a minor? They (the Right) never talk about this part of it.
Here's another question. Do we want one standard for the entire country opposing abortion, or will 50 separate standards suffice? If it's the former, we'd need legislation making abortion a FEDERAL crime. That puts the FBI in charge, literally, of the bodies of all the nation's pregnant women. Is that really what those folks who always talk about SMALL government want? Maybe we'd need an entire new branch of criminal justice just to cover this one crime, and it would have to be VERY powerful to succeed. If 50 different laws prevailed, it would inevitably lead to state line reproductive clinics in states with liberal, bordering states with restrictive, standards.
Just what would the criminal penalties be for those who refuse to save the unborn? Would we be willing to kill to show that killing is wrong, Texas style? Who's eligible for the chemical needle? If it's a prison term, wouldn't it be counterproductive to put women in prison during the prime of their child-bearing years if it's babies that society wants?
One more little problem. Even in an "abortionless" society, such as they're attempting to create in South Dakota, a FEW abortion procedures would be approved under extreme or rare circumstances. Who would have the authority to approve an abortion? The governor? The Reproduction Czar? The president? Or could the local HHS bureaucrat simply put a stamp of approval on it, maybe in return for a bribe? The Right NEVER talks about all this because the DEVIL (literally in this case) is in the details. Not to drift too far from the subject, but you might recall that Romania had a dictator who simply outlawed all forms of birth control in order to help the nation's population grow. But he couldn't make all those children wanted and loved, and so the government had to provide "orphanages" for all the unwanted infants, a horror story that symbolized the worst of all conditions in the old Iron Curtain countries. You may also recall they shot the dictator and his wife in the street.
So I'm not advocating abortions, and advise all of you to advise your families accordingly. Some things that are legal aren't good, and this is one of them. But until something better comes along, freedom is going to have to be the standard. Of course while all this is being discussed, the Right and its army of Christian lawyers is trying to chip away at abortion rights in such a way as to make the procedure legal, but unavailable for a hundred little reasons. It's not so much that they love children, since they are working hard to keep the children of the poor in that condition. They're also against ALL forms of birth control, with the possible exception of a locked chastity belt. About all you could say about these good folks is that they are "pro-birth". After that, you're on your own, kid.
Abortion. I've never been around one, wouldn't want to be. Told our daughters it's wrong. Is it safe? Nothing is perfectly safe, not in a medical office or a hospital, for that matter. Is it violent? I believe it is. It's not really even birth control, but the failure of birth control. Wasteful. Sad. A pity, considering that many aborted babies could have had adoptive homes.
Would you expect someone who thinks this way to favor the reversal of Roe v. Wade, or to pray nightly for a solidly pro-life Supreme Court? Nope. Not me. I believe that until we all choose something else, that we're stuck with legal abortion.
Here's why. When our friends on the Right talk about saving babies, what the are talking about is simply re-criminalizing a precedure that's now been legal for over 30 years. Making something criminal doesn't mean it won't happen since we can't simply forget the technology that makes it happen more-or-less safely. My problem with the Right is that they never talk about this. If it's a crime, then there must be a criminal. Criminals must be punished, or there's no point in having a law. So who all is guilty? The aborting mother? Sure, but what about the aborting father? The abortion providers? The parents of a minor? They (the Right) never talk about this part of it.
Here's another question. Do we want one standard for the entire country opposing abortion, or will 50 separate standards suffice? If it's the former, we'd need legislation making abortion a FEDERAL crime. That puts the FBI in charge, literally, of the bodies of all the nation's pregnant women. Is that really what those folks who always talk about SMALL government want? Maybe we'd need an entire new branch of criminal justice just to cover this one crime, and it would have to be VERY powerful to succeed. If 50 different laws prevailed, it would inevitably lead to state line reproductive clinics in states with liberal, bordering states with restrictive, standards.
Just what would the criminal penalties be for those who refuse to save the unborn? Would we be willing to kill to show that killing is wrong, Texas style? Who's eligible for the chemical needle? If it's a prison term, wouldn't it be counterproductive to put women in prison during the prime of their child-bearing years if it's babies that society wants?
One more little problem. Even in an "abortionless" society, such as they're attempting to create in South Dakota, a FEW abortion procedures would be approved under extreme or rare circumstances. Who would have the authority to approve an abortion? The governor? The Reproduction Czar? The president? Or could the local HHS bureaucrat simply put a stamp of approval on it, maybe in return for a bribe? The Right NEVER talks about all this because the DEVIL (literally in this case) is in the details. Not to drift too far from the subject, but you might recall that Romania had a dictator who simply outlawed all forms of birth control in order to help the nation's population grow. But he couldn't make all those children wanted and loved, and so the government had to provide "orphanages" for all the unwanted infants, a horror story that symbolized the worst of all conditions in the old Iron Curtain countries. You may also recall they shot the dictator and his wife in the street.
So I'm not advocating abortions, and advise all of you to advise your families accordingly. Some things that are legal aren't good, and this is one of them. But until something better comes along, freedom is going to have to be the standard. Of course while all this is being discussed, the Right and its army of Christian lawyers is trying to chip away at abortion rights in such a way as to make the procedure legal, but unavailable for a hundred little reasons. It's not so much that they love children, since they are working hard to keep the children of the poor in that condition. They're also against ALL forms of birth control, with the possible exception of a locked chastity belt. About all you could say about these good folks is that they are "pro-birth". After that, you're on your own, kid.
posted by Mark at 8:03 PM
1 Comments:
Mark,
(Hee hee, Dad)
When is it appropriate to put morality into law and when is it not? Where do you draw the line? Being a devil's advocate, if you were to answer "When an act is hurting another individual" then you would have to include abortion in the category. (Seatbelts, however, would only be required for children, but maybe we would then be getting into a public health debate if we went down that road)
Laura
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