I've come to the conclusion that Pro-choice is definitely not, at its core, the inverse of Pro-life. Strictly speaking, Pro-lifers should be pitted against the Anti-life faction, but they should be working with Pro-choicers to create a social environment where the choice to not kill fetuses becomes a no-brainer. And certainly, that's what's happening in less-radical circles, or so I trust.
Personally, the thought of aborting a life is abhorring to me, but so is the thought of removing my right to choose to give life. To take away the choice over an act is to discount the value of that act. What I might have done out of love would be indistinguishable from what I am forced to do by law. I want babies to live, yes, but I also want babies to grow up having no doubt that they were and are wanted by their parent(s). Too much emphasis is placed on the fact that if we're given the right to choose, 'murder' might be chosen. That's a big worry, but allow me to look at the flip side of this coin: what about the fact that if we're given the right to choose, life could be chosen? It's a fine, fine line, but an important one. Anyone celebrating someone's decision to keep a baby is essentially Pro-choice (as well as Pro-life), because if there were no choice, there would be no decision to make or to celebrate.
Bottom line: Choice and Life need eachother. They are two fundamental bases of humanity - why shouldn't they coexist?
And now the excerpt from Dan Savage that started my little train of thought:
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Sept 11, 2008
http://www.thestranger.com/savage
The 17-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, the GOP's vice-presidential nominee, is pregnant. The news was released by the McCain camp during a busy week—a hurricane, the Republican National Convention, Dick Cheney getting us into a war with Russia—so it didn't receive the coverage it deserved. To recap:
Seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin got her ass knocked up five or so months ago by 18-year-old Levi Johnston. Among the hobbies listed on Levi's since-yanked MySpace page—"fishing, shoot some shit, and just fuckin' chillin'"—was this revealing tidbit: "I don't want kids." But Bristol, says her mom, "made the decision on her own to keep the baby," and is now engaged to Levi "Shootin' Shit" Johnston.
As the adoptive parent of a child born to a pair of unwed teenagers, I'm certainly not in favor of abortion in all circumstances. But I believe that it's a choice teenagers should be able to make for themselves—with input from their families whenever possible—and, so it seems, does the GOP's VP nominee. Sarah Palin is pleased that her daughter made the decision—on her own—to keep the baby.
But Sarah Palin doesn't believe that other girls should be able to make their own decisions. Sarah Palin believes abortion should be illegal in almost every instance—including rape and incest. So Bristol Palin is being celebrated for making a choice that Sarah Palin would like to take away from all other American women. Apparently, today's GOP believes that choice is a special right reserved for the wayward daughters of Republican elected officials.
Oh, and Sarah Palin also believes that birth control shouldn't be made available to teenagers, she opposes medically accurate sex education, and she backs abstinence-until- marriage sex "education."
Sigh.
The GOP has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into abstinence "education" programs during the Bush years. I believe this enormous investment of public funds begs the obvious question: Are our children abstaining? Sarah Palin's aren't. Despite this massive outlay on the part of the American taxpayer and the example set by her Christian parents, Bristol Palin became sexually active while still in high school. Excuse me, but if abstinence education can't keep the daughter of the evangelical governor of Alaska off the cock, what hope is there for the daughters—and some of the sons—of average Americans?
I'm a cad for writing this, of course, because shortly before Bristol and Levi were paraded before cheering throngs at the Republican National Convention, the Palins asked the media to respect their daughter's privacy.
Another special right: When it comes to respecting your family's privacy, Palin and the GOP see no need. They want to micromanage the most intimate aspects of your private life. And if their own kids fail to live up to the standards that Palin and the GOP seek to impose on your family, well, that's a private matter between the Palins, their daughter, their God, and the thousands of screaming imbeciles in elephant hats waving McCain/Palin signs on the floor of the Republican National Convention.
3 comments:
Even if I weren't in the role of "supportive boyfriend" I'd agree wholeheartedly.
I agree with your stance but not entirely with the reasons as to why. People make the wrong choices all the time, and laws are there, in part, to try to prevent people from making the wrong choices that hurt society or defy what the ruling majority deems moral.
I don't really care to go into great detail on such a divisive topic before the all-seeing eye of the internet.
Good point. But while it's true that laws against abortion may be comparable in theory (or morally) to laws against, say, killing your neighbour, I think they're realistically quite different, which is probably why this issue is particularly hard to resolve. Illegalizing abortion clinics, for example, won't prevent people from making the choice to abort, they'll just do it at home with a clothes hanger or something equally disastrous. Even if there is comparable punishment for both acts - if you think murder is murder is murder - one clearly would have a higher detection rate than the other.
By taking away the choice between legal abortion and keeping the baby, you're actually leaving people with the choice between self-aborting and keeping the baby. That in no way prevents anyone from making the 'wrong' choice in this specific case. Where detection is difficult and equally harmful alternatives are accessible, it's much better to create an environment where one would not desire to go down that 'wrong' route at all. ...is all I'm saying.
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