Letters to the Editor

• As soon as you're a baby killer, you lose.

  [Read the article: The "middle ground" on abortion]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  I'm sorry. There are a lot of Americans who don't really get why religion in public life is a big deal, but there are a *lot* more Americans who are viscerally horrified by what sounds like an argument for killing babies because they're not people. I don't say we should stop making the argument that fetuses aren't people because it's not true; in fact there's no real way to say it's true or not until the law feels like actually defining the limits of personhood. I say we should stop because it's *killing* us.

  Most Americans support a woman's right to an abortion, but they are uneasy on the subject, feel that abortion is probably the lesser of two evils, and support some restrictions on abortion. They will not come out and support us as long as our opponents can paint us as rabid baby-killers. That's why we need to turn it around. Point *out* that the religious nutjobs are trying to impose their religion on us, and isn't that why the Puritans fled England to colonize Massachusetts? I mean, who hasn't heard that story in second grade? Point out that their opposition to birth control is totally illogical in combination with their opposition to abortion; they want an ideal world where no one ever has premarital sex (and married couples can always afford another child), but since that will never happen, they are at *best* wild-eyed dreamers with no grasp of the real world whose lofty idealistic goals will end up murdering women and leaving children in torment and poverty, and at worst, they hate women and are using nice words to cover up their real feelings. *Call* them on it.

  Remind Americans that it's un-American to impose a religious belief on the law; show average Americans the consequences of this illogic; and stop trying to argue from the position that fetuses aren't people. It's not provable one way or another; whether a fetus is a person or not is totally a matter of personal belief, and why is our personal belief more valid than theirs? Average Americans will be uneasy with what sounds like rhetoric dehumanizing babies; focus on the stupidity of the pro-life movement, the misogyny, the total lack of realism, the illogic, and sound like *you're* willing to make a reasonable compromise to prevent abortion humanely, while preserving the American value of liberty, but these nutjobs just want to enslave women into being baby machines.

  As long as we sound like baby-hating wackos, they get to keep the "reasonable people" high ground, and they totally do not deserve it. Politically "fetuses are nothing but collections of cells" is a loser. Why do you think they've been making such gains? We're focusing on arguments that most Americans don't want to stand up and support, even though they're basically on our side, while their supporters are rabid and refuse to logic-check their beliefs. Get the more reasonable ones to realize that, no, Republican social policies and religious right anti-sex crusades *won't* end abortion, they'll just kill women, and the way to preserve the rights and liberties of everyone is to promote birth control and social policies that don't result in economic abortions, and we can split them off. (I believe this is in fact Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's position.)

  We should not apologize for wanting to preserve the right to abortion, because it is essential to liberty. But we shouldn't sound like we think abortion is a *good* thing, either. Even viewed from the perspective of "it's a medical procedure", a triple bypass may be necessary to save your life but wouldn't it have been better not to have heart disease in the first place?

  Permalink Thursday, February 16, 2006 07:25 PM