crandc I'm pro choice. That said, I see abortion as taking of a life, but it's justified. We take life in all sorts of ways that is justified - police kill bad guys shooting at them, Obama kills americans overseas with drones, the Navy Seals went in and shot Bin Laden pretty much in cold blood, our soldiers kill enemy soldiers in combat, citizens kill in self defense, the state executes those found guilty of capital crimes. All justified. I see abortion as a form of self defense. This is relevant because there are clearly a lot of people who see the taking of INNOCENT life as murder. When murder occurs by the hundreds of thousands or millions each year, it's on the order of genocide. I get it from that perspective, too. It just doesn't outweigh the individual woman's right to her own body. Because it's the woman's body, her right to choose, I don't even question WHY she makes the decision. "I don't want to share my body with the fetus" is sufficient and covers every situation there is. That would obviously cover the case where the woman is convinced her life is jeopardized by the pregnancy. While I am pro choice, I don't see any reason at all that the state should put an abortion clinic in every woman's back yard. For all the $millions and $billions spent on lobbying the govt. over abortion rights, maybe some of it could go to actually help women get abortions they want/need by covering the cost of travel, hotel, and medical bills. You are going to find many doctors who would be the ones to perform abortions that are pro life. Ron Paul delivered thousands of babies and is pro life and is a Libertarian. Yeah, the abortion is murder transcends Party because it is a PERSONAL religious or moral conviction. The flip side is that when a woman wants to have the baby, it is most certainly a life. If a pregnant woman is murdered, TWO charges of murder will be brought against the murderer. So it can't be both ways - not a life if one woman wants an abortion, but a life if another woman doesn't. I think my position is completely defensible and has no inconsistencies. However most people I encounter who are either pro choice or pro life have most indefensible and inconsistent views. Like abortion is OK, but capital punishment isn't (logic fault). Or abortion should be illegal with exceptions (exceptions are logic fault). Rape is a horrible crime. In my mind, it is rape whenever the girl or woman (or man in 9% of reported cases!) doesn't consent. It's not that hard to define. There is no nation or place on earth where it doesn't occur. I wish it were different. I do think you're being played still. You went on a rant about health of the mother. Before Roe, doctors routinely performed abortions where the life of the mother was in jeopardy, and they didn't wait for her to be on death's door. The laws of all of the states either permitted abortion in this situation or the courts overrode the state laws to permit it. In fact, the law was quite liberal about allowing abortion in the case of HEALTH of the mother, a lower standard than LIFE of the mother. Sorry, but I see this rant as you being played.
Denny I appreciate your thoughtful post. I'm not for a clinic in every woman's backyard. It would sure scare my cats. But when 87% of counties have no provider and women have to travel hundreds of miles, get a forced ultrasound that is not medically necessary, then go home for her 48 hour waiting period and come back again, access is an issue. A right one cannot access is not a right. If you had to go 200 miles to vote, get your ballot, come back 3 days later to cast your ballot, wouldn't you consider that infringement on right to vote? I personally don't consider abortion "taking a life". I was raised Jewish and Halacha (Torah law) considers the fetus to be part of the woman's body until birth. I am now a nonbeliever and still feel that way. Of course, women have abortions (not "liberals" as mediocre man said) for as many reasons as there are women. For some it's an easy decision, for others a very hard one. At the end of the day, the late murdered Dr. George Tiller summed it up best when he said "trust women". As for women's lives, it is true before Roe v Wade that women got abortions without waiting until they were at death's door, but laws being proposed by today's extremists and enacted in countries like Nicaragua and El Salvador are much stricter than the laws that existed in most places pre 1973. It would no longer be up to the doctor's judgment. You may think I'm being played, women look at the past 2 years of unrelenting attacks on abortion, contraception, rape victims and know we are not. Since 2010 women's rights have been under attack with what I can only describe as manic glee. I have every reason to believe a Romney presidency would intensify these attacks as he has pledged to do so.
I think Leonard Pitts gets at the heart of the matter here when he addresses the "Binders full of women" thing: Some may think women are getting "played" on the whole sexism issue. But the majority of women in America are Democrats, and it ain't because they are stupid. As Tina Fey put it recently, "If I have to listen to one more gray-faced man with a $2 haircut explain to me what rape is, I'm going to lose my mind."
Yeah, I think women are being played alright. Call me cynical, but I'm quite sure that a variety of issues are focus group tested by the campaigns and the ones that push peoples' buttons are added to the candidates' stump speeches and talked about by the surrogates that $1B in campaign funds buys. The media that's in the tank for one side or the other is sure to bring forward some person who presents a sob story meant to sway opinion. For certain, the Obama campaign realizes its losing ground in the polls among women voters and this is one of those survey tested issues they think promoting will get some women to vote their way. That's being played. You need a bullshit filter. We all do. Romney is not out making speeches wherever he goes, talking about ending legalized abortion as if it's any sort of priority for him. His 5 point plan, which I assume is what he'd use his first 100 days to pass, doesn't have a thing to do with abortion rights. WHEN ASKED about it, he'll say whatever his campaign has focus group tested to be the best answer to get his base voters excited. He's not a bogeyman. The democrats need him to be. They spent hundreds of $millions on TV ads portraying him to be one. "I'm not Mitt Romney" is pretty much all they want to run on, since the economy (the #1 actual issue and what Romney IS running on and talking about) is not in their favor. Democrats need bogeymen everywhere, BTW. Top 1%, the rich aren't paying their fair share, those evil oil companies, and so on. Republicans haven't had that sort of bogeyman since the USSR fell - OK, maybe Islamic extremists. The flipside is true, too. Obama's not a communist from Kenya.
Food for thought: Mitt Romney rejected a plan while governor of Massachusetts that would have allowed same-sex married couples to both be listed as the parents of children born to them, the Boston Globe reports from state records it obtained this month. After the state's highest court legalized gay marriage in 2003, the Registry of Vital Records presented a plan to change the "father" box on Massachusetts birth certificates to say "father or second parent." Romney rejected the plan, the paper writes, and said same-sex parents would have to personally request that the governor's office change their children's birth certificates. Parents and clerks complained the special procedure caused delays. Romney explained his opposition to the change to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2004, according to the Globe. "The children of America have the right to have a father and a mother,'' Romney said. "What should be the ideal for raising a child? Not a village, not 'parent A' and 'parent B,' but a mother and a father.''
Each and every democrat is just like this woman. Just like every republican is like Todd Akin. http://denver.cbslocal.com/2012/10/26/jeffco-democrat-of-the-year-convicted-of-felony-theft/ JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4)- The woman named “Democrat of The Year” this year by the Jefferson County Democratic Party has been convicted of felony theft by a Jefferson County jury for stealing from a developmentally disabled 71-year-old woman. “The jury did right,” said Cindy Maxwell, an advocate for the victim. On Thursday, a jury convicted 66-year-old Estelle Carson of felony identify theft and felony theft from an at risk adult for stealing checks from the woman and using them to pay her own cable, cell phone and internet bills. The victim is partially blind, developmentally disabled, has cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair. She is on a fixed income of $596 per month according to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office. (You go girl!)
