Quote:
Originally Posted by kajo13
I don't want to high-jack this thread, but as a pro-choice liberal I'm curious to find out if there's a middle ground on the abortion issue. Would you find it acceptable to maintain legal access to abortion if education and resources to reduce unwanted pregnancies were increased? Or is there a gestational threshold you could tolerate?
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I am not sure. Anything that saves one life is better than saving no lives, so theoretically some compromise might be possible but that is beyond my ability to say. I do have some thoughts I could share but I doubt that they would be satisfactory.
- In and of itself public servants are duty bound to respect the law, regardless of how they personally feel.
- Changing the law, in itself, will not solve the problem.
I have come to this argument from a different approach than many. My answer to you will be in parts.
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Unlike quite a few (if not most) Christians, I don't oppose abortion simply because I was told it was wrong by religious leaders, although there is that ...
I oppose it because of *gasp* science.
When a woman is pregnant her body needs to make certain adjustments to protect the fetus
from her own body. You see, the DNA of the child is unique to the child, even as a single cell. The mother's immune system would quickly attempt to kill the fetus, in fact this may be the major cause of miscarriages and spontaneous abortions of the very young.
So I don't accept that the fetus is part of the mother's body (a major pro-choice argument), that is a misconception that should be laid to rest. It is a fact every one should be made aware of somehow.
I don't see any gestational limit that is acceptable. One might as well be Solomon.
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As far as compromise? This took me a long time to fully understand, and I have been greatly conflicted over it.
Let us first recognize that not all Republicans are pro-life, in fact I would say far less than half give a damn about it at all. Of those that do, for many it is only because they were told it was a sin, they never figured it out for themselves ... they simply do not have the courage of their convictions. When little Jenny gets 'caught' in a jam, Republican Mom will be the one driving her to the clinic, they might not even let Republican Dad know
but they will get it done.
These are socially conservative, fiscally responsible (and often church going) people who, when the chips are down will opt for an abortion rather than see their precious daughter drop out of university and miss the chance of building a successful career, or perhaps making a socially climbing match with a young doctor or something.
It is also the case that not all Democrats are pro-'choice'. There have always been pro life Democrats and there are still many today. Admittedly they appear to be in the minority, but working class 'Joe Sixpack' Catholics and Baptists have traditionally been supporters of the Democratic party in urban areas. Many are not comfortable with the pro-choice position which predominates in the national Democratic Party, and the Republicans have used this religious connection (for several decades) to attempt inroads into an electorate which otherwise would not support Republican pro-business/anti-labor policies.
This, in fact, is how they got their hooks in me.
I see hypocrisy on both sides of this issue. Those who would claim that a vote for a Democratic politician is a sin (I have seen this claim made) are just victims of political manipulation.
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Liberals are noted for advocating for the weak, and the most vulnerable in our society, they fight for the voiceless. This is their great strength.
Well, the unborn are the weakest of the weak, the most vulnerable, the one's in most need of protection. The fight for these little people's rights should be, if anything, a liberal cause.
We can look back at how America was before Roe vs Wade. We have always had laws against abortion,
it didn't work very well. It wasn't pretty. People were still having sex outside of marriage, women were still seeking abortions and often not only the child would die, but the mother as well.
At that time in our history we nearly all agreed that abortion was wrong and our laws reflected that, yet abortions continued, we could not stop it. Resorting to a legal remedy does not actually solve the problem.
Abortions happened in communities of all backgrounds: Baptists and Presbyterians in the south, Catholics and Lutherans in the north, rich Episcopalians and poor fundamentalists ... the country club set and people from the sweatshop.
I just watched "In the Heat of the Night" again after many years, among other things the story line touches upon this subject ... great movie.
Many times also, the children were carried to full term and abandoned into an uncertain future of the orphanage. A better expedient but still a sort of bitter tragedy.
Often it was out of a sense of shame that women would resort to this. They didn't want and couldn't bear the pain of the rumors of scandal. Rumor mongering and backbiting is
our sin, and no one is helped by spreading gossip, in fact in this case gossip kills. Much better to be sympathetic and non-judgmental, not only a more Christian attitude ... it helps save these little lives.
Changing the law ... overturning Roe vs Wade, in itself, is not the answer. It is like beating our heads against the wall. It is not even the beginning of the solution to this problem. If at some point the ruling is ever overturned abortions will simply continue. Changing this currently settled law is not going to fix the problem, it just won't, it will be just like the Prohibition era, people will work around it and criminals will prosper.
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The concept of 'choice' is related to free will. It is supposed to encompass both the opinions of those who oppose abortion for themselves as well as those who are ok with it. The reality on the ground is not so simple, to most people allowing others to kill children in unconscionable, so it doesn't really work if it implies we are all ok with it, we are not actually ok with it. It is painful.
From a religious perspective we are all answerable to our maker for our life's choices. The final arbiter is not the state. My advice would apply whether Roe Vs Wade was overturned or not: What we need is a national conversion of heart. Pro-life groups need to focus much more energy on converting minds and hearts of people about the subject of unborn life. By ignoring this they are making a serious mistake, we can not leave this issue to the courts and the prison system, people will still die.
We also need reproductive education, it is a science. We need to teach the young people how to prevent pregnancies,
and why that is important. If we are seeing too many unwanted pregnancies we need to promote birth control. We as a society need to help the people decide for themselves that getting pregnant under the wrong circumstances is hurtful.
If we spent half the money (umpteen millions of dollars every year) we have spent over the years in lobbying against Roe Vs Wade
instead applying it to educating people WHY abortion is unacceptable, how it is like murdering your own child, more people would choose to avoid it out of their own conviction and lives could be saved. The problem is no one wants to do that. The issue is being used as a convenient political weapon, but the hard work is being neglected.
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