safe, legal and what?

For the libs, a question:  Abortion, we are told, should be "safe, legal and rare."

Why "rare"?  Why not routine?

When Obama describes abortion as a "heart-wrenching" decision, why is this so?  Why is it any different than trying to pick out a pair of shoes to wear?

You either believe it's a human life, or you do not.  If you do not believe it's a human life, then there's no reason for abortion to be "rare"; no reason for abortion to be a "heart-wrenching" decision.  If you do believe a fetus is a human life, then aborting it is murder.  Period.

One last question: When a woman has consensual sex (safe or otherwise), isn't she exercising a choice?  And if pregnancy is a logical result of her choice, isn't it a bit hypocritical to argue that the right to life is an attack on choice?

Liberals wish to argue that abortion is a matter of "choice," yet in the case of most pregnancies a clear choice has been made to risk conception.  Pregnancy is not a denial or threat to choice, it is merely the reality of that risk.

Finally, there are supposedly two "irreconcilable" positions in play here.  One claims that "it's not a baby" while at the same time admitting its desire to make abortion "rare."  The same camp likens the consequences of choices to being denied a choice. 

The other viewpoint says abortion is murder, and approaches the matter as such -- consistently, and on principle.

I won't take the position here of when life begins, or whether a fetus is a life worthy of protection.  I don't need to.  All I need to see is that the liberal position, as usual, is complete rationalization; intellectual dishonesty. 

Reconcile that.

Comments

[Wilson]

For the tards, a question: if a woman is not having consensual sex, is abortion a viable option at this point, such as in cases of rape or incest?

"When a woman has consensual sex (safe or otherwise), isn't she exercising a choice?"

Feel free to rationalize this away at your discretion, as I'm sure you will.

If abortion is outlawed as the pro-life movement wants, what will be the criminal consequences for having an abortion? If a father kills his child, it's first degree murder, should it not be the same for a mother who aborts? If a mother miscarriages, will that carry criminal charges as well like in post-war West Germany who charged many women after a miscarriage following travel outside the country?

Are you willing to live with untold thousands of women dying every year from coat hangar abortions and quack doctors like this country experienced in the 1950's and before?

The hypocrisy of the tards is that life ends at birth and then all care and concern goes away or 100K+ orphan children each year wouldn't be an issue. The hypocrisy of the tards is that the majority of U.S. citizens support abortion otherwise at some point in the last 8 years of Republican dominated governing, Roe vs. Wade would have been cast down...it hasn't, funny that. The hypocrisy of the tards is that they will be the first to have their daughter abort an unwelcome child if it interferes with their socio-economic lifestyle or social standing in the community. However, I'm sure you have some rationalizations to counter all of these statements...just like us libs.

[John Galt]

"For the tards, a question:"

LOL @ "tards." I wanted a blog called "libtards," but it was already taken. I had to settle for "libotomy.com" instead. Maybe I'll make my first post there about you.

"if a woman is not having consensual sex, is abortion a viable option at this point, such as in cases of rape or incest?"

I don't know. Are you libs going to argue that a rape victim's fetus looks more like tissue on an ultrasound than someone else's fetus??? That would be a hoot.

Abortion is still murder, but the rape victim is sovereign over her own body. It should be her decision -- God knows she deserves as much. But let's not pretend that any less of a life is at stake. It's still a choice -- her choice; let's just a little more honest about what the choice actually is.

"Feel free to rationalize this away at your discretion, as I'm sure you will."

Rationalize? You mean like, "it's just tissue"?

"If abortion is outlawed as the pro-life movement wants, what will be the criminal consequences for having an abortion? If a father kills his child, it's first degree murder, should it not be the same for a mother who aborts? If a mother miscarriages, will that carry criminal charges as well like in post-war West Germany who charged many women after a miscarriage following travel outside the country?
"Are you willing to live with untold thousands of women dying every year from coat hangar abortions and quack doctors like this country experienced in the 1950's and before?"

I don't have answers for your questions. I don't need answers for them. All that matters is that abortion is murder, and the victims of this tragedy deserve nothing less than an enlightened society that understands, and which treats the procedure as such.

I'm not big on sticking government in people's faces. I don't count on government for much, so I'm not going to expect much from it on abortion. I'm much more interested in the lives that would be saved if society simply recognized abortion for what it really is, or if society approached it like the brutal slaughter that it is instead of pretending it's some routine procedure.

In short, I'm not nearly as confident that government can stop abortion as I am that ordinary people, knowing the truth about abortion, would be far less inclined to have the procedure -- or even to risk unwanted pregnancy.

But enough about your pathetic deflection. Why do you oppose ultrasounds before abortion? After all, it's just tissue, right???

[Mitch Baker]

Great reply, John. It is always good when someone can admit that their philosophy doesn't automatically give easy answers to hard questions but rather gives a basis for developing meaningful solutions.

A few thoughts based on Wilson's comment that Roe v. Wade wasn't cast down during the 8 years of Republican hegemony:

1st - At most, Republicans "dominated" government for 6 years. This is just nit-picking, but whatever.

2nd - Roe v. Wade is a supreme court case, so there isn't much the executive and legislative branches can do after the fact. If conservatives want to blame any Republicans, we'd be better served to point the finger at Bush I and even Reagan. Of course, Ford probably made the biggest error. Unfortunately, I bet Obama won't make the same mistake.

3rd - Overturning Roe v. Wade wouldn't make abortion illegal, it would just put the issue back to the states as it should be. One of the main purposes of a federal government is that the states have a unique opportunity to consider and address the difficult issues where solutions would be necessarily complicated. As different ideas are tried, some are successful and some are not. With the reins in the hands of the legislatures, the failing ideas can be changed and modeled after the successes.

I clearly don't have the answers, and I know no other single person does (or 5 or 9 or 535 or whatever). This is what states are for.

Oh, and I have to laugh when I see that pro-lifers only care about life before birth. Conservatives (probably especially religious ones) care for and donate to and volunteer with all sorts of organizations that help the less fortunate of all types. We just recognize that this is best done at the individual level rather than collectively taking from one group at the barrel of a gun to allocate to another group, which only serves to pay off political investments and to disincentivize self-reliance.

[TQ]

I often see the argument put forth by abortion proponents that if abortion were outlawed we would see thousands of women injured/killed/etc. from illegal, medically unsound abortions. This sort of ignores that access to contraceptives is much more wide spread now than 50 odd years ago. Women all have access to birth control, men all have access to condoms. These are not, of course, fail safe methods, but the number of unwanted/unplanned pregnancies resulting from people having sex with contraceptives is pretty small. So it isn't as if lack of access to family planning necessitates the availability of abortion. There is, of course, also the argument about incest or rape. Again, I'd guess that the number of pregnancies resulting from either is fairly small. And even then the argument is weak. I mean a family member could physically attack you and that is clearly a crime, but you don't then have the right to kill them for it. The incest/rape argument hinges upon the assumption that one wrong makes another wrong morally ok. I don't quite follow this logic, probably because it isn't really logic.

But back to the main point, as is typical with liberal thinking, rare events clearly call for moral acrobatics. Yes, in the absence of legalized abortion there will be some illegal abortions and there will be orphans, but in sheer numbers these events will be relatively rare. It doesn't mean that they aren't terrible, but rare events don't mean that we need to make moral exceptions. We adjust to the reality that life isn't perfect and that we'll have to deal with orphans and we'll have to deal with people sometimes having to raise a child they didn't plan for, and we'll have to deal with back alley abortions. I fail to see where the social cost of those sort of rare events is greater than the social cost of murdering babies by the millions.

[Jared]

Right now it doesn't matter whether the anti-abortion standpoint is right, because if it is written into law, it will create resentment from a large number of pro-abortion citizens. The problems of enforcing abortion, determining when life truly begins, and dealing with those apparent moral corner-cases all have a simple solution: For now leave the decision to the individual (or at least to the states), and properly place the emphasis not on enforcing morality but on teaching morality.

The time for writing a moral decision such as this into law is when people are educated about the proper decision to make and have decided that writing it into law is the best thing to do. Trying to enforce the morally correct decision before people understand why it is correct will only cause disaster.

I imagine you may be thinking that certainly if a lot of people decided robbery is moral I would not want to see robbery made legal. My response is that when proper emphasis is placed on moral education, such a situation will never arise.

[Glenda Edwards]

As an old woman who came of age in the '50's, I really hate to see the government take charge of any medical care...including abortion. Think of all the red tape! Ye-gods! Do those who will/can make the decision for you/your body have a clue what is truly best for you...or your fetus! Do not make abortion illegal, but do NOT pay for it.