I avoid posting in this thread anymore because I’ve cut down drastically on my interaction on this forum in recent months due to an ever busier schedule. Plus, less emotional involvement here gets me less upset when someone does something rude or disagrees profoundly. I probably will get sucked into a conversation I shouldn’t take my time on, but I do wish to leave my thoughts on the reinstating of the global gag rule.
I figured the best way to address this was to reply to my favorite post from the opposition on this site, the post I most agree with in fact:
Tyrphanax said:
In this modern world of progress, education is the key to all things and yet we continue to defund it every chance we get, then wonder why things go wrong.
I agree with the need for more education. While I would love to live in a world where personal responsibility was the ruling factor in people’s decision-making, I know it is not, nor will it ever be. People make mistakes, and often we look for a way to give a reprieve for those mistakes. Based on that understanding, we must prevent unwanted pregnancy in order to prevent abortion.
I’ll give an example: I believe Rick Perry signed a Texas law disallowing the morning-after pill for minors without parental permission. I find this to be foolish. The morning after pill prevents fertilization, does no harm to a living, genetically unique human, and prevents pregnancy. If I want to reduce abortions, this will actually do exactly that. Women will not get pregnant, and no child will be aborted. Win-win!
People don’t have babies willy-nilly because it’s fun to have a kid.
It can be. It is hard, but many people want children, and many women love being pregnant.
People don’t have abortions willy-nilly because it’s fun to have an abortion. They do it because they don’t know better, or don’t have access to contraception, or because of accidental pregnancy/pregnancy through malicious intent.
This is true. However, the first two do not justify an abortion to me.
I once got pulled over for going 35 mph in a 25 mph zone. I could not find a sign for a long distance before, and the sign was obscured by a tree. To me, everything else on the road indicated it was likely a 35 mph zone, with a painted yellow line, sparse housing, and a nearby 35 mph zone that was similarly painted and housed. I went to fight this ticket in court, and the judge ruled against me saying, “Ignorance of the law does not justify breaking the law.” I still had to face a consequence of my decision to speed, even though I didn’t know I was speeding.
Now how many post-pubescent individuals do not know that sex leads to babies? I’m guessing a very small percentage. And even if they are ignorant of the fact or the likelihood, I don’t see a “Get out of parenthood free” card as a fair answer to the child.
For the record, I do believe rape is a justifiable reason, though not necessarily the default answer. It should be well thought out, but I do believe it should be the woman’s choice in that case.
Why we feel the need to punish people for the above and then propagate the problem by continuing to cut funding is not logical or intelligent.
The funding is the problem. I don’t like abortion, and I don’t like spending my money on it. How many people complain about American dollars going to fight wars they don’t believe in? I know it’s far more expensive to fight a war than to financially support these NGOs. I know that there is a high cost of innocent and guilty human life. I personally hate war. And I understand that at times, war is a necessary evil that hopefully will save more life in the long run than it destroys. But protesters will protest war, and they have that right. President Obama pulled out of Iraq, and in retrospect it was premature, but it was an effort to avoid spending American money on something he did not believe in. Americans who don’t believe in abortion should have the freedom to oppose it, and the president should have the right to curb abortion as much as possible.
You wanna see fewer people on welfare funded by your tax dollar having a million kids? Prevent it by education (and not abstinence-only because that’s a farce and will never work), providing contraception,…
Agreed. This saves us from spending unnecessarily on those who are most likely to get pregnant unintentionally and are least financially capable of raising a family.
…and allowing abortion.
I disagree. Killing a person while it’s legal is still killing a person in my mind. I don’t feel an inclination to round up all the welfare recipients and euthenize them. I don’t believe it is any better just because they are future welfare recipients who haven’t developed a complete nervous system yet.
Funny thing is that when you do the first two (educate and provide contraceptives), I guarantee that the third option (abortion) will fall rapidly. You wanna solve abortion with me? Then lean on the first two.
This is where you and I agree the most. How can we promote these two more? Serious question. How can I reduce elective abortions in unnecessary cases while still promoting education and contraception? I believe that there are options, but I don’t know the answers. Perhaps educating women that there truly are more options than abortion for unwanted pregnancies. There are so many families who want to adopt. There are resources for those unprepared to have children to facilitate responsible parenting. There are ways to educate the public at large and reduced social ostracism. Perhaps more education, reducing obstacles from these routes, and preventing pregnancy in the first place will save women’s and children’s lives.
Don’t just defund the whole thing and shove it under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist for inane puritanical ideological reasons. I don’t like the idea of abortion as much as anybody, but you damn well better believe that I want them available and happening in a well-funded controlled and clinical environment, and not some back alley with a rusty coathanger.
I agree, I would want them done in the safest way possible. Abortions should be available, but in my mind, only in exceptional circumstances. It is far too common, often unnecessary.
I dunno about anyone else here, but I’d rather my tax dollars go to paying for a box of condoms and an IUD for a teenage couple than go to paying them and their five kids to stay on welfare for the next fifty years. And then pay for those five kids’ twenty-five kids to stay on welfare for another fifty years. And so on. You wanna treat the disease? Treat the cause, not the symptoms.
Agreed, but again, not at the cost of life. That’s where I draw the line.
It’s the same thing in “underdeveloped” countries, too, you wanna stop spending billions in aid on these countries? Teach them to fish, so to speak. Don’t cut the “learn fishing” programs and then complain about refugees. Christ almighty the disconnect in that “logic,” and yet it prevails nation- and world-wide.
But it’s not about actually saving lives or preventing abortions, it’s about punishing people for being people.
That is not my intent, nor that of most pro-lifers’. One could use the same rhetoric for the embryo or fetus: It’s about punishing people for being underdeveloped and unwanted people. Just like people have sex and we don’t expect them to stop just because it’s not done responsibly, we don’t expect unborn infants to stop growing just because their parents don’t want them.
To pre-empt a couple of arguments, I have a couple of more items to say:
I hate argument about personal morality. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard people say, “I personally am against abortion, but I cannot impose my morals on someone else.” Look, all our laws are based on morals. Removing the idea of an absolute Giver of Law and Morality, there is technically nothing that is absolutely wrong, unless we as a society define it as such. Without God, there is no commandment of “Thou shalt not kill.” We humans simply have come to believe it is wrong, and therefore legislate against it. We develop our morals based on the idea of promoting life and happiness for as many individuals as possible, and of course, I agree with this notion, but just remember that our laws are in fact based on morals that not everyone agrees with. I’m sure there are individuals who believe black slavery should be reinstituted, that Jews should be exterminated, etc. Should I say to them, “I’m pro-slavery-choice,” or “I’m pro-Holocaust-choice because though I personally am opposed to it doesn’t mean I should tell someone else how to live his or her life?” Of course not. I have the right to advocate for legislation against abortion, even if many others disagree with me. I believe it is wrong, and I believe that just because someone else doesn’t feel it is wrong, I still have the right to sway the nation to uphold what I believe is correct. How long did abolitionists fight slavery when half the nation disagreed with them on its morality? I have the right to fight abortion, even if half the nation disagrees with me.
And before anyone calls me out for being male, and therefore unqualified to make a judgment on the issue, let me then say that if you are male, you have no more right to reply. You may say, “Well, women oppose abortion, and I’m just advocating for women’s rights.” Well, while numbers tend to remain fair split, I think it a fair statement to point out that nearly as many U.S. women are pro-life as are pro-choice (I suspect if it were broken down by the “personally pro-life” vs. generally pro-choice, it would be even highter who are pro-life to some degree), and more than half of pro-life activists are women. Even when in the minority, it is still a very sizeable minority of women who oppose abortion, so calling me sexist for opposing it will do no good. Per the below Gallup link, I support 41% of American women, and the Town Hall link is even more revealing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_pro-life_movement#Demographics
http://www.gallup.com/poll/170249/split-abortion-pro-choice-pro-life.aspx
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2017/01/23/marist-abortion-poll-n2275329
Final pre-emptive point: I still don’t like Donald Trump. But I agreed with Obama on many things, even though I didn’t like him (though I’d take a third Obama term over our current loser). I just happen to agree with the idea of not using American dollars to support elected, unneeded abortions, at home or abroad.
