I've often thought that the pro-life argument made a lot more sense in the progressive camp, in a politics that embraced the support of single women and their children, of poor families, a view that saw the government as having a role in supporting families of all types in their decisions to raise children. The conservative position has always been, you're a murderer if you abort your pregnancy, but if you have the baby, to hell with you, then, too. Don't ask us to help you: you're on your own.
As an adopted child, I've always struggled with the issue of abortion. I don't think forcing women into back alleys makes good law or good morality. But I've also felt that I would never want anyone I knew or loved to abort a pregnancy, no matter how that pregnancy started. There are always parents, like mine, saints that they were and are, willing to take a chance on a child that someone else didn't want or couldn't keep because she was young, scared, and alone. So the jingoistic chants from both sides have always left me rather cold, and I've always felt that the right answer on abortion was somewhere in between the two opposites ends of our polarized debate, somewhere along the lines of Hillary Clinton's description of the ideal abortion policy, "safe, legal, and rare."
All that is prelude to a piece in Huffington Post entitled, "Why I'm Pro-Life and Pro-Obama." Unfortunately in our political discourse it's hard to find a truly unique voice and unique position, but here's an example of one. Whatever your position on the Dem primary or abortion, this piece is worth reading in its entirety. In it, Frank Schaeffer exposes the evangelical right for its cynical use of the abortion issue to win votes for the GOP, and claims that the left is actually the place for a politics that supports what the right likes to call a "culture of life."
Meanwhile, an excerpt after the jump. In 2000, we elected a president who claimed he believed God created the earth and who, as president, put car manufacturers and oil company's interests ahead of caring for that creation. We elected a pro-life Republican Congress that did nothing to actually care for pregnant women and babies. And they took their sincere evangelical followers for granted, and played them for suckers.
The so-called evangelical leadership -- Dobson, Robertson et al. also played the pro-life community for suckers. While thousands of men and women in the crisis pregnancy movement gave of themselves to help women and babies, their evangelical "leaders" did little more than cash in on fundraising opportunities and represent themselves as power-brokers to the craven politicians willing to kowtow to them.
Fast forward...
Today when I listen to Obama speak (and to his remarkable wife, Michelle) what I hear is a world view that actually nurtures life. Obama is trying to lead this country to a place where the intrinsic worth of each individual is celebrated. A leader who believes in hope, the future, trying to save our planet and providing a just and good life for everyone is someone who is actually pro-life.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Pro-Life, Pro-Obama
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24 comments:
Thanks for posting this Dave, and for telling a little of your personal story.
Shaeffer's piece resonated with me. I increasingly find myself in a place where I think I'm going to vote for Huckabee in the primary (if he survives that far) and Obama in the general election. Why?
Maybe because I'm a sucker for passion and vision and change. Maybe because our government has become a grotesque of what the Founding Fathers envisioned or that generations of my family fought for, going back to the Revolutionary War.
I abhor being characterized as something I'm not simply because my voter registration says "Republican" or "Democrat." Neither party speaks for me. In fact, I think political parties are the big festering zit on the butt end of this country.
I can't quite bring myself to condone abortion, but doubt that it can be legislated out of existance. So Hillary's position is probably as good as it gets. The fact that's worth paying attention to is that birth rates are inversely proportional to educational levels. Or as someone once said, 'an education is the best birth control.'
We need to get control of the birth rate on this planet, and gradually start working the population back down to something sustainable. We do that by giving everyone a chance to participate in the economy, not with handouts.
It's a soup made of up of industry, jobs, workers and education. The difference between economic conservatives and economic liberals is where the government plays a part.
My belief is that it begins with jobs, and the bulk of them being skilled, but not necessarily requiring college degrees. The effort of one engineer can create jobs for thousands of construction workers, which create jobs for thousands of service workers and so on.
It does no good trying to crank up the science/math education in an attempt to make everyone an engineer.
Better to crank up the economics and personal finance education so folks don't get duped into credit cards and screwy mortgages.
PL
What we don't need is justification for abortion at all.
We had the highest rates of abortion AND teen births in the decade after Roe vs Wade --and it started to decline with abstinence sex ed.
The increase in unwed pregnancies went through the roof --increasing from 1 out of 40 white teens before 1973 to 8 out of 40 (one out of 5.) And from 1 out of 5 black teens to 4 out of 5 having unwed pregnancies.
The option of abortion contributed to BOTH the 'culture of death' and the cycle of poverty caused by unwed pregnancy. Now the trend is to dispense with getting married--more and more are shacked up and childless --to our detriment. We may really need people for national defense, security, and social security and other aid programs. As well as business entrepreneurs and job creators.
Abortion is no panacea for anything and should be outlawed again. It is murder of a unique human being.
The conservatives DO realize the need to help single parents and children -- but the public never needed encouragement to sexual licentiousness which seems to accompany democrat policies. Conservatives are the biggest donors to charity, e.g.
All Obama does is make good speeches and hold political office. For that Franky Shaeffer endorses him? Please! He has always been in rebellion to his father.
PS --the challenge to the culture should be to STOP the sex-saturation in media, the condoning of sexual activities among youth by value-neutral education as though it is impossible to slow it down with abstinence ed.
I don't mind if abstinence ed includes directions for birth control ed for those determined to hop in the sack, but abstinence until marriage should be stressed for all its benefits. Then, at least, when people get the cart before the horse, it might be with someone they thought they were going to marry --near the age when they could marry.
We need to stop insisting that people wait until they can sustain marriage at the economic level their parents have in mid-life. It's leading to perpetual single-dom. Hetero marriage should not be disparaged --but celebrated, aided, encouraged.
We do need better parenting, chaperonage --and more church involvement by families. The school's task is enormous trying to compensate for all the broken homes. the churches are excellent places for helping people stay married and helping to raise children to be responsible and moral citizens. Church gives meaning to life beyond the hedonistic pursuits of the here and now.
Bad news, Barb... Church involvement doesn't do a thing statistically in terms of reducing teen sex. Nor does abstinence only education. The research is pretty clear, in spite of attempts by the Bush administration to suppress it.
And you'll also be disappointed to know that abortion rates have increased during the Bush years. Fancy that. I guess BUSH is actually the one who makes fancy speeches, without any substance behind them. Not Obama.
Data:
"Using data from the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, the Guttmacher Institute, and reporting by individual states, Stassen found that U.S. abortion rates declined 17.4% in the 1990s to a 24-year low when Bush took office. Many expected that downward trend to continue under the conservative president, but Stassen found the opposite: 52,000 more abortions occurred in 2002 than would have been expected under the pre-2000 conditions, and abortion has risen significantly in those states reporting multi-year abortion statistics. Responding to Stassen's study, Sojourners magazine editor Jim Wallis stated, "We have seen once again in this campaign the issue of abortion used as a partisan wedge rather than having a serious discussion on how to act to reduce the number of abortions." ... "If we are to be truly pro-life, we must focus on real people and the conditions that lead women to seek abortions," said Wallis. "Jobs, healthcare, and a living income must be part of a pro-life agenda.""
And thanks, Paul, for contributing a typically intelligent and reasonable post.
Church involvement does SO slow down the onset of first sexual experience --raises the age of premarital sex activity and reduces promiscuity.
You get more of what you condone, for sure. Value free sex ed that tells kids to wait "until you are ready" to have sex --to be sure and not do it if you don't really want to --HOW LAME IS THAT!? REal lame. and worst of all is the encouragement to "explore one's sexuality" in adolescence.
Paul, Huckabee said, "Gov't didn't give the right to life and it cannot take it away." the right still exists and our judges said otherwise.
We have every practical reason to encourage waiting for monogamous marriage --no disease risk for either male or female in this situation.
The fear of pregnancy and social stigma and parental stability and supervision deterred much sex activity and premarital pregnancy before Roe --and you did not dispute my figures on that --which are from Guttmacher some years back.
The stigma should be against making a girl pregnant and not marrying her and raising that child. Then guys would think harder --as they used to--about jumping in the sack on a whim.
Girls could be key--if they refused sex without the wedding ring. There is enough grief in life even for good marriages and strong families --who needs the heartbreak of STD's, abortion, fatherless kids, and women and kids in poverty?
Traditional Judeo-Christian sexual morality in a culture is a plus for that culture.
Also, Paul, you talk about reducing birthrate? Europe is turning into a Muslim majority --and they still believe that Israel should be non-existant and that theocracies are ideal --not religious freedom. A muslim majority will change life as you know it.
We need to keep birthing little Republicans who believe in less gov't not more --who believe in sanctity of life and traditional morals and marriage.
Otherwise, without youth, who is going to make up our military when needed for defense --and who is going to work at home and support the aging and the needy? Maybe our economy is lagging behind the rest of the world now for two reasons: 1. God's judgment
and 2. the abortion of people who would not only have been consumers in our economy, but entrepreneurs, job creators, economic wizards.
Who knows how much damage we have done to the USA with our libertine humanism? Look at all our starlets in Hollywood, our role models for youth, overdosed, dead, divorced, shacked up, and drugged--and in and out of rehab. The poor kids in the local schools can't afford those lifestyles. Not even rich heath ledger could.
Exactly what does the criminalizing of females who seek or obtain abortions have to do with "a politics that embraces the support of single women and their children, of poor families?" Really. Think about it.
It amazes me how narrowly so-called pro-lifers view the decision to terminate life in the womb. You may believe that you, whatever that means, your soul, your spirit, the essence of you that transcends your physical body, would never have been born had your birth mother decided to terminate the pregnancy that resulted in the physical you.
But then again, you may not believe that. You may believe that our souls are destined to arrive in this life at certain moments no matter what, regardless of any individual decision to terminate a pregnancy.
We know so little about life, about what it all means. Those of us who THINK they know all about the true meaning of life are the most dangerously narrow-minded among us.
Females should not be forced by society to choose between maintaining a pregnancy they do not want to maintain, and breaking the law and suffering its punitive consequences. The right to choose whether to terminate a life you are carrying in your womb is a deeply personal one, one that carries with it responsibilities that go beyond any of the earthly societal problems of poverty, overpopulation, fetal defects, social stigma, or even selfishness.
When you refer to "a child that someone else didn't want or couldn't keep," you attribute characteristics to a fetus that are inconsistent with my deeply held sense of life, a sense that is serious, carefully considered, and very spiritually based. It's the straw man argument that you are particularly quick to recognize when it appears in other discussion arenas, Dave.
A true "culture of life" would celebrate a variety of ways of looking at life in the womb, recognizing and honoring the individual's right and ability to exercise her own sense of morality when deciding whether to bring another life into this earthly world.
There are many ways to destroy life before birth, and many ways to destroy life after birth. Some of the ways we do this are very direct and unmistakable. Other ways can be traced through a path of destruction that conveniently separates the cause from the victim, but that may ultimately have much graver consequences than the more simple and direct act of a pregnant female choosing to destroy a life that's growing in her womb.
I will never support the singling out of a female's right to control when she brings life into this world, and criminalizing it under the pretense of morality. That suppression of individual will is an act of violence against that female.
Oh, and btw, I'm pro-choice, Dave, but maybe you figured that out already.
Cheers.
Your friend, Linda
Linda,
I think I'm failing to make my point clear with you. When I say that the culture of life is consistent with the liberal position what I mean is this. Conservatives say, even "Christian" conservatives, have the child no matter what. But you won't get child support from the government--get a job. You won't get any help from us--have it anyway, and by the way, you're a horrible person because you got pregnant. Now go starve in the street with your baby.
The liberal position supports whatever women choose, whether it is to carry the pregnancy to term or not. It gives women real choice by virtue of creating a safety net to support parents and children in need. Why don't pro-lifers also support children in their politics? That's the point I think Schaeffer was making.
And when I said "the child" I wasn't talking about a fetus, I was talking about a baby that has been carried to term and born.
I don't believe in abortion. But I don't think it should be criminalized. Modern politics sometimes forces us into pre-determined positions: either you are pro-choice or pro-life. I don't like those choices, although I suppose I'm pro-choice by definition because I support Roe and detest attempts by the right to place a law in between a woman and her doctor in a woman's painful personal decision. I'm not pro-life in the traditional sense, if that's what you thought I meant by this post.
Dave,
I reacted to what I understood to be a linkage between the pro-life argument and progressives. As a pro-choicer who has deeply considered this issue for 40 years or so, I have read every argument imaginable to support the anti-choice argument. It all gets down to this: Nobody can make that decision for a pregnant female. All that society can do is create an environment that welcomes life, no matter the circumstances. We haven't done that yet, even though the teachings of Jesus, which promote that very thing, have been around now for 2000+ years. What do you think the chances are we'll ever get there? Human beings would have to make a huge evolutionary jump in our emotional growth.
In the meantime, the decision whether to bring a child into this world is a difficult one, so let's leave it to the one who is ultimately responsible for the life, the female. This is not murder, despite what some of our moral know-it-all's believe.
So many anti-choicers refer to a fetus as a child, I wrongly assumed that's what you meant. A fetus is not a child.
I can't say that anyone I know in the pro-choice movement "believes in" abortion. To make a point cynically, abortion is not a belief. It's a medical procedure that some females opt to undergo, and yes, it involves the termination of life, within the womb, but not of a child.
I have not as yet heard a single reasonable response to the questions, "If abortions are illegal, then how should we punish the females who undergo them? Should we begin tracking them as soon as they become pregnant, to make sure they don't try to sneak out of the country and get an abortion elsewhere? And how should we handle pregnant females who we suspect are seeking abortions? Or ones who obtained one elsewhere? Should family members turn them in to law enforcement? What kind of proof will be required for prosecution? When a doctor determines that a female is pregnant, should the doctor be required to notify the government of the pregnancy?"
The answers that are usu. given by the so-called right-to-lifers is that God will punish them. OK. So let that play out and leave them alone, please. Take your placards and your photos and your screaming and go home and pray. Or better yet, do something productive about a society that doesn't respect life in all its forms!
I used to work in a Planned Parenthood clinic. I know the real life stories of females who choose to have abortions. And I know about the mean un-Christian behavior of those who think they know what their god considers to be right/wrong. -- Linda
Thanks, Linda, I appreciate your thoughts. I just don't want to be thrown into the pro-life camp, for exactly the reasons you've articulated. I just think it's surprising that more pro-life people don't wind up in the progressive camp, and I thought Schaeffer's arguement was unique and worthwhile.
By the way, Huckabee made his position clear. Both the mother AND the doctor go to jail.
http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com
/ Here is one good reason to discourage abortion. While the NCI denies a breast cancer risk from abortion, many studies say otherwise.
(1) Science being what it is, there will always be studies that indicate there could be a link between abortion rates and breast cancer rates, just as we continue to read studies that indicate that human energy consumption is not linked to global climate change.
(2) Breast cancer rates aside, it is still a female's decision whether to maintain a pregnancy or not.
(3) Eating fruits and vegetables that have been sprayed with organophosphates is definitely heavily linked to breast cancer rates. If we're really serious about breast cancer rates in America, let's go after the actual causes of it. When do we start? I will sign up.
Linda
Linda --a fetus is a human life at the earliest stage of life, even if you don't call it "child." It is certainly the tadpole on its way to frogdom. We cannot make a living child on our own--it is still a miraculous entity --LIFE. It is not morally justifiable to ever take an innocent human life. Some justification for eye for an eye, life for a life --pertaining to one who takes the life of others as in murder. And of course that is arguable.
Huckabee means that IF the law is reinstated, abortion would be criminal --not the pre-law abortions and abortionists. That would make abortion rare, Hillary's claimed goal. Right to LIfe people need to keep making the case and pricking the conscience --so that people don't think, when they get into bed with someone, "well if she gets pregnant,there is always abortion."
I think exceptions in the law could be made for rape, incest and life of mother --as a place for a woman's choice to be retained --tough strict right-to-lifers would argue against even that --as the murder of an innocent, helpless human life entitled to the protection of its mother and the law --entitled to the protection by the father with child support payments if he's not in jail.
And yes, such a child should have welfare support if the law insists it be born once conceived because of its inherent worth. But welfare should never be so rosey as to be an incentive to have another fatherless child and to live off the gov't even after said child is in school. Policy DOES affect human choice in this matter.
It was Roe that brought us the "sexual revolution" with unprecedented unwed pregnancy rates, including unwed birth and abortion rates and new incurable STD's --and unprecedented divorce rates and now, shacking up trend.
None of this bodes well for the future of our nation. We do need a new attitude about sex and children.
"I think exceptions in the law could be made for rape, incest and life of mother --as a place for a woman's choice to be retained"
So you are already making exceptions, and posing them as concessions for a female's ability to retain some control over whether to maintain a pregnancy. I see that for what it is, a not-well-thought-out basis for criminalizing one of the many ways we human beings destroy life.
Many people take a stance of moral superiority, claiming that abortion is murder. I have heard that argument posed many, many times, mostly by hate-filled people who have enough time to set aside to publicly harrass females who are pregnant in a society that ostracizes them and their children, both socially and financially, but who have little/no interest in working alongside people who might be pro-choice or not share their particular religious beliefs to foster "a world view that actually nurtures life."
Dave, that piece you linked to is very, very good. It was written by someone who apparently has honestly and fully taken to heart the teachings of Jesus. America could really use more spiritual leaders like Schaeffer. I wonder if he has been vilified or otherwise attacked by extremist evangelicals and others for his views as expressed in that essay.
I think we could all do without the lectures on what exactly constitutes "murder," given all the ways that our bloated collective lifestyle as imperial consumers of the earth's resources results in the death, destruction, and suffering of so many people in faraway lands, far enough away that we can pretend that we are the good guys, that we are on the right side.
Criminalizing abortion forces pregnant females in crisis to go underground, or forces more mothers and children into poverty, and sets up yet another blockade that prevents all of us from coming together and celebrating "the intrinsic worth of each individual" as the path toward a common societal goal of females bringing life into this world only when they are ready.
I am a compassionate progressive, and I am pro-choice.
Linda
Re: "It was Roe that brought us the "sexual revolution" with unprecedented unwed pregnancy rates, including unwed birth and abortion rates and new incurable STD's --and unprecedented divorce rates and now, shacking up trend."
This explanation for disturbing societal trends of increased unintended pregnancy rates, single parent families with children, treatment-resistant STDs, and skyrocketing divorce rates is astonishingly monolithic. I would even suggest that you've erected the wrong monolith.
These rates were all well on their way to smashing previous records long before 1973, when Roe v. Wade was passed. Treatment-resistant STDs (and other bacteria-caused illnesses) were predicted as far back as the 1940s, and are the result of the reckless abuse by our meat and poultry producing industries, aided by our FDA, to keep industry profits up and consumer prices low. STDs have always been around, for as long as people have been having sex, which I believe has been since the beginning of time.
Our shocking marriage failure rate is the direct result of the stresses placed on families by our need for two full-time wage-earners just to get by. Married couples with children have so little time for their relationships today, thanks to our economy being reliant on continued increasing corporate profits. If we can change this economic model, we would go a long way toward fostering a society that values, respects, and cultivates a "marriage-friendly" society.
I will leave out the classification referred to as the "shacking up trend," as I do not believe it belongs with these other problems. For further insight into this human situation, I suggest reading Dr. Zhivago, The Scarlet Letter, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
I have to keep reminding myself that America is a nation where fewer than half of Americans accept the scientific validity of any form of evolution, a phenomenon unique in the developed world, that so many of us deny the settled science that DNA contains the basic biological instructions that make each of us a unique human being. We are a nation where an astonishing 20% of us believe that the sun revolves around the earth. Only 10% of us understand what radiation is or its effects on the body. (I just read this in today's paper.) This knowledge deficit extends into the areas of sexual and reproductive issues.
We, as a diverse, secular nation, can tackle difficult and controversial issues like the one of abortion, and discuss them using reason, logic, and clarity, only when we have our facts and our timelines straight.
I remain a compassionate, pro-choice progressive.
Linda
The following phrase "the result of the reckless abuse by our meat and poultry producing industries..."
should read "the result of the reckless abuse of antibiotics by our meat and poultry producing industries"
Dave, if you're able to make that change and then erase this post, I'd appreciate it.
Linda
a curiosity--why do you sign your name while posting as "anonymous." Why not use your name as your screen name?
I want to address your comments later. Gotta run now.
I sign everything I write here. Go back and look for yourself. Linda is my name, which is just as transparent as barb is as your name. I choose to not have a google account. IMO, that is just one more way for google or some other marketing engine to generate spam.
Thanks for asking. I would rather you know the truth, rather than suspect something that would be patently false.
I would love to read your response. I will be looking specifically for your responses to the aspects of the abortion issue that I addressed. I will likely gloss over any anti-choice rhetoric.
For example, you may choose to refer to abortion using the word "murder;" I will not engage with you on that topic, because it is pointless; it is a tactic using charged language intended to shock readers/listeners, rather than to legitimately engage with them in a meaningful pursuit to understand one another. I could spend hours listing all the numerous ways you and I support various U.S.-sanctioned ways to terminate life in all its forms, ways that are far more destructive than abortion, and in which those who do the actual killing have nothing to lose by stopping except huge corporate profits. So I will stay away from a too-large and complex discussion about murder. You will have to take that up with someone else.
I've been in this game since before 1973 when Roe v. Wade was passed. Contrary to what the anti-choice organizations will lead its followers to believe, everyone I know in the pro-choice movement and who is a member of NARAL has very deeply considered this issue, and for many, many years, many of us working for organizations such as Planned Parenthood.
barb, one more thing just occurred to me. My original post in this thread was directed to Dave, in response to some of his comments re abortion. I have been blogging with Dave for how long now? Two years? Three years? I choose to dialogue with Dave, because he engages on a level I find appealing and challenging. I respect his opinions and conclusions, because I know him to be very reasoned and logical, with a high level of clarity in his writings.
Some of my other posts in this thread were directed specifically at some patently false statements made by others that have to do with females' reproductive rights. I never object to someone having a different opinion or conclusion. However, when the basis for those opinions/conclusions demonstrate misinformation, ignorance, or low levels of argument such as personal attacks, rhetoric, and the assignment of questionable motivations, I will usu. respond to those bases.
I choose not to "duscuss" any controversial subject on the basis of misinformation, ignorance, or poor forms of argument, however. As long as you have your facts straight, and you're not amping up the emotions unproductively using studies that are being misrepresented, or using inflammatory rhetoric such as "baby-killing," I am game.
I just want to be very clear, that I will not engage with you in a spit-ball contest re abortion. This issue deserves better consideration from all of us.
So please, read my posts as carefully as I read the posts from others, inc you, before you respond. As writers, we all owe it to our craft to make sense. Thank-you.
Linda
Linda, I think your complaint is that pro-life people don't want to increase gov't aid to the needy and therefore we should abort the children so they won't experience poverty. Right?
There was a woman who had many kids out of wedlock featured on the Montel Williams show. She said," If the gov't can send a man to the moon, they can afford to pay me to make beautiful children."
Montel objected, saying he didn't see why he should have to be taxed to pay for her children. They were HERS not HIS. He didn't pro-create them; she did --yet, she was deliberately having more children and expecting to get more money with each child and questioned why taxpayers should object to supporting her and her children.
When people get pregnant out of ignorance, or from force of any kind, when they are immature and irresponsible by reason of their age and environment, society has to provide a safety net. But I believe that adoption and even children's religious group homes would be better than what some of these kids are born into --but abortion is never the best solution for the child.
Great people have been born into poverty and made great contributions. Children from group homes of generations past have turned out well, self-sufficient and functional.
Gov't, however, has no business aiding and abetting the attitude that someone else OWES us support for the consequences of our own irresponsible extra-marital sex.
No one wants to see children deprived --so we have free lunch programs, charities galore, free public education and many other programs to help single mothers and their kids. GOP is accused of voting against these programs --when, more likely, they are merely voting against increases in these programs--challenging administrators to do more with less because we are at war for our survival --and we do have a huge debt and deficit spending.
I, for one, believe that federal money needs to go first of all into national defense and security, infrastructure needs --and that the people and states, local communities, churches and educators need to address the problems of the poor --and really get involved with them instead of just trusting Uncle Sam to do it all.
The GOP would like us to reduce the numbers of kids born out of wedlock --not through value-neutral sex ed as we've often had when teen pregnancy rises --but through marriage affirming, abstinence-based programs --which do have a better track record than the other kind.
You can't tell kids to "wait until you 'are ready' and really want to have sex" AS though none of them ever would want to have sex except for peer pressure or boyfriend pressure. Truth is, most people are eager for romance and tempted to have extra-marital sex as soon as they get an appealing opportunity. A culture that says extra marital sex is not a temptation, not wrong, will see many more of their people indulge at younger and younger ages. And they will want money for the babies and diseases that result -and they bring those babies into unstable situations --where poverty is likely.
No matter how sympathetic and generous the gov't wants to be, we can't afford this increase in teen pregnancy that came in with the Sexual Revolution, the Pill, and Legalized Abortion. I've cited the stats before on how much increase there was in teen pregnancy after Roe. 400 per cent among blacks and 800 per cent among whites.
Your Rocky Mtn. Planned Parenthood actually produced a brochure that said girls could now be as promiscuous as boys --no longer the "good girl, bad girl" dichotomy --because girls didn't have to get pregnant. They could have sex and get off free and have no one know, just like boys. Just get on the pill --or get an abortion.
At the time, condoms weren't the big deal, because all the STD's seemed to be curable. Then Herpes and AIDS came sweeping in. And we kept saying the same things --except adding the condom--though condoms fail and people fail to use them in the heat of the moment.
We have thoroughly messed up our societal morals since the 70's --starting in the 60's with the Free Love culture of the hippies.
And STILL, the kids with their mom and dad under the same roof, whose father has a job --even if they are poor --those kids are more likely to pull out of poverty themselves when they are 30 --than are those who received gov't assistance for the same level of poverty. Another blogger posted that fact from a study of poor families who had been gov't dependent for at least 3 years compared to poor families who had not received gov't assistance.
In conclusion, being pro-life doesn't mean you are against all aid as the pro-choice people claim. The liberals would rather see these children never live --than to live poor. Pro-lifers don't want them to live in poverty either --but the solution is to reduce teen pregnancy through moral reform of our culture --once again saying "pre-marital sex IS irresponsible sex. But if you make a baby, give it up for adoption. Give life."
If a society commits itself to reversing the trend of pre-marital sex --and works at reducing numbers of divorces -- works at strong family life, that would be a WIN WIN for everybody.
Instead, liberals see no legal reason to punish pornographers and reduce internet porn --which has ruined some marriages and stimulated sex crime (sex criminals are always into porn--and get ideas from it)--we see no reason to clean up our music and video influences -- or to discourage the use of family money on gambling, alcohol, tobacco or porn. Some want to legalize prostitution and drugs which would mean more users at less cost.
Our culture is not family friendly or family supporting anymore --except in the Christian sub-culture. Church-centric families will do better than those who are not --however, all are at risk with TV as the family altar--and in situations where the mother has to work and there is no supervision at home. but again, that is not federal gov't's problem to solve. That's something families and churches and local communities need to address.
barb,
Re "Linda, I think your complaint is that pro-life people don't want to increase gov't aid to the needy and therefore we should abort the children so they won't experience poverty. Right?"
No, barb. That is not my point at all. I didn't write that, and I don't think that.
What "[you] think [my] complaint is" is completely unrelated to how I feel about and think about a female's right to choose. I didn't read past that paragraph, because how you characterized my feelings and thoughts is so far off the mark, I just don't know what to make of it. Were anyone to express to me the position you stated in that paragraph re a female's right to choose, I would completely disrespect that person as a human being.
Maybe another time.
Linda
Barb said...
Quoting Linda-- "I could spend hours listing all the numerous ways you and I support various U.S.-sanctioned ways to terminate life in all its forms, ways that are far more destructive than abortion, and in which those who do the actual killing have nothing to lose by stopping except huge corporate profits."
I wonder if you would explain the above and this remark below:
quoting Linda--"There are many ways to destroy life before birth, and many ways to destroy life after birth. Some of the ways we do this are very direct and unmistakable. Other ways can be traced through a path of destruction that conveniently separates the cause from the victim, but that may ultimately have much graver consequences than the more simple and direct act of a pregnant female choosing to destroy a life that's growing in her womb."
I interpret you to mean we destroy life by not supporting democrat party welfare policies, right to euthanize, capital punishment, going to war --and as regards children, by not supporting new programs and increases in welfare/ADC/Medicaid/education and gov't healthcare for all, etc.
Or maybe you were talking mostly about corporate products and processes and auto emissions, etc. that may be harmful to people and the planet in the long run?
I don't know any compassionate conservatives who don't want everyone to prosper economically and have good health. I don't know any conservatives who really want the planet damaged for the sake of money. Obviously not everyone agrees about what is harmful to the planet, and whether some of the green measures will have any good effect, other than destroying economy --which also takes lives.
Re: this statement of yours: "there are much graver consequences than the more simple and direct act of a pregnant female choosing to destroy a life that's growing in her womb"
To that life in her womb, there is no graver consequence than from the mother's choice to destroy it.
"simple and direct?" I suppose so --but ending an innocent, human life all the same.
It is in motherhood that we learn what it is to serve the greater good --the choice for life inconveniences a woman for 9 months --and then she may adopt out her child if she doesn't want any more inconvenience. She doesn't know what God may do with that person she has conceived. He/she may be another Einstein, a Mother Theresa, a Beethoven.
Is it really the mother's choice to make? or God's?
I say her choice ended when she got into bed without taking any precautions against pregnancy.
And of course, you disagree --which is certainly your right. But hopefully the Supreme Court will come to its senses someday and quit making law from the bench.
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