Letters to the Editor
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@mchebert
You have completely missed the moral issue, which is entangled with the logical one Chomsky evidently evinsced. People are going to have sex. Condoms fail, as do diaphrams and spermicides. Even the pill is not full-proof. And many, many people who have sex will wind up with an unwanted pregnancy or, worse still, an unsupportable pregnancy, whether due to health or economic issues.
According to your moral - or perhaps more accurately - ethical argument such people should be condemned (and that is the proper term) to an 18 year burden they did not want or, again worse still, cannot bear. And what of those people who cannot bear that burden? What you have failed to consider is the hellish life the unaborted child in question will have to endure. And for what? To prove that "personal responsibility" is an absolute value foresaking all others? That, sir, is what is commonly known as a "fallacy."
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We Are Already Sliding Down the Slippery Slope
Twenty years ago pro-choice advocates warned that once the abortion was lost or nearly lost the religious right would come after contraception. And that's exactly what they're doing. And there is only one explanation for going after the pill, condoms, diaphrams, the morning-after pill and spermicides. These people want to control the sex lives of their fellow citizens, and they'll use the law to do it. That means they have not one iota of credibility. None, zip, zero. They are nothing more or less than theo-fascists. And they must fought and fought hard.
Men have a stake in this fight, for once abortion and contraception are illegal, how long do you think it will be before they go after vasectomies? Emboldened by their previous legal victories, they will drop all pretense of the issue being about "the children" and simply state that vasectomies - and tubal ligations, to be sure - allow people to have sex "without consequences" and so must likewise be outlawed.
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A Clarification
All those who are pro-choice must remember that at the organizational level, excepting people's individual consciences, the "it's a child not a choice" rhetoric is a red-herring. This is about controlling women's and, eventually, men's sex lives. Nothing more, nothing less. The fact that these same organizations have fought the morning after pill and are now beginning to make noises about the original pill is proof positive.
And please don't try and argue with me. I am a Constitutional absolutist, a "Don't Tread On Me" person. I say to all those who would attempt to use the law for the purposes of tyranny:
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Translation: "So it ever be to tyrants" The meaning is unambiguous.
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Hey captcrisis
So you ask will pro-chociers except any restrictions. Well they have accepted the restrictions under the original Rove v Wade ruling since 1973. We don't need any more restrictions.
- Under Roe-no restrictions first 12 weeks of pregnancy
- uner Roe, after 13 weeks state can regulate abortion if it puts no "undue burden" on the women womn. Parental consent laws and waiting periods laws have actually caused more women to get abortions in the second trimester instead of the first. I do not support parental consent laws that do not have a judical bypass. There is no mdecal proffesional organzaton that supports parental consent laws.
-Under Roe all abortons were banned aftr 22 weeks except to preserve the Life or health of the woman. Abortions have always been VERY rare late term.
I disagree with the new ruling that disregards womens' health late in pregnancy because in very rare instances some women develop severe health cosequnces late pregancy that can endanger he reproductive health. The life and health of a wmoan should always be more higly regarded.
Frankly it is NO ONES business. This is a privacy issue.
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On gays and abortions...
Anyone who opposes gay rights hates gays. Period. If you have a gay child and you don't support gay marraige, you hate your child because your trying to deny them the same rights you have.
Now, on to abortion...
One poster asked earlier why women who have abortions aren't being criminalized as well as the doctors. I have asked this question to several anti-abortion activists and to this day still have not gotten an answer. You can't have it both ways, people, the woman is just as responsible as the doctor is. How do you reconcile that ones in your mind? She is not a "victim" if she is fully aware of what she is doing. We don't let people get away with murder just because they are emotionally distraught at the time. If a woman kills her husband for cheating on her because she was angry with him at the time, most jury's aren't just going to let her walk for it.
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Captcrisis
The stats you're citing show a difference that falls within the margin of error. More to the point, how the questions are phrased means everything in the abortion debate. Or experience, for that matter. Thus, more Catholics oppose abortion, but Catholic women are more likely to have an abortion than their non-Catholic counterparts.
But again, the most virulent opponents of abortion have been men. There are women who would never have an abortion themselves and, thus, would see themselves as pro-life, but know better than to assume no one should have access to abortion. This is pretty much what it came down to in South Dakota--it's one thing to think abortion is yucky and sinful, quite another when you realize what having no access to abortion might mean to you and yours personally.
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most pro-lifers are women
I bet it was a surprise to see those numbers, wasn't it? If it was within the margin of error then we'd see just as many contrary results. But in fact the margin is consistent. Women tend to me more likely to be pro-life than men.
"Pro-life" means being opposed to abortion being available. That is what the question was. There are lots of people who would not have an abortion themselves but aren't opposed to it being available for others. Those are not pro-lifers.
There are a lot of virulent pro-lifers, and I agree that a lot of them are men. And a lot of them have other agendas, some of them anti-woman by any definition. But that doesn't make them wrong. Anyone who sticks to saying, "If they were REALLY pro-life they would also be in favor of . . . etc. . . etc . . .", is just avoiding the issue. Being a creep doesn't make you wrong. By the same token, being correct about other issues -- access to birth control, help for poor mothers, opposition to the death penalty -- doesn't make you right.
To call abortion a women's rights issue is to fly in the face of demographics, and of history.