Here’s what I’ve never understood about the [Republican] party: its resistance to discussing better access to birth control. As a Republican, I am pro-life. But using birth control and having an abortion are not the same at all. Actually, the best way to prevent abortions is to educate people about birth control and make it widely and easily accessible. True, abstinence is the only way to fully prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Still, the problem with abstinence-only education is that it does not make teenagers and young adults more knowledgeable about all the issues they face if or when they have sex—physically and emotionally.
Yep, that’s sure a confusing paradox. Or it would be, if you take the goals of the Repubican anti-abortion forces at face value. It’s a real stumper.
But suppose—just suppose—that the anti-abortion factions aren’t just anti-abortion, but they’re against sex altogether. A bunch of bluenose prudes, not wanting anybody but married folks like me to be getting it on.
Then maybe, just maybe, anti-abortion isn’t about stopping a medical procedure. And it’s not even about saving a life (or a potential one).
It’s about punishment.
No abortions, no condoms, no morning-after pills? It’s all of a piece. These things all remove or prevent the physical consequences of sex. There’s a pro-life bumper sticker that’s been around for a while, that reads “It’s a child, not a choice.” But the fact is, the pro-lifer’s behavior isn’t about the child at all. It’s not a child; it’s not a choice: It’s a consequence.
A baby is as good as AIDS is as good as the clap. Anything to scare people away from doing it.
I’m not saying this is the motivation behind the majority of the party; I suspect that there are far more Republicans than they’d like us to believe who’d be perfectly happy to let Roe vs. Wade stand, even if they have a personal problem with abortion. (I even suspect Meghan McCain is one of them. She writes, “As a Republican, I am pro-life.” I wonder if the reverse would be true?) But the true believers who so assiduously hammer the anti-abortion plank into the Republican platform? If they really thought abortion was murder, they’d be welcoming every chance they had to stop even one. Every condom, every pill, could save a life.
But the one crime worse than murder, in their minds, is sex. And they want to make sure it doesn't go unpunished.
Rob
3 comments:
Oh yeah -- it's about sex. If it were really about babies, the groups that are so vociferously anti-abortion would not be the same groups actively opposing same-sex and single-parent adoption. Yet they almost consistently are.
People often refer to the pro-life bunch as single-issue voters. That's usually not the case at all. They are, if anything, single-outlook voters. It's not just that they want to see abortion eliminated; they want to see abortion eliminated on their terms.
If you had even the slightest clue... If it were really about women's rights, the groups that are so vociferously pro-choice would not be the same groups that supported Bill Clinton's sexual harassment of women or Ted Kennedy's murder or Mary Jo Kopechne. Yet they almost consistently are. And as the Left preaches an ever more destructive version of those 'rights' , we're not supposed to make any connection to the ever worsening conditions women face in the inner city hells that pro-choice, pro-welfare , supposedly pro-woman groups have created.
Murder?
It was negligent to leave the scene of an accident, but calling it murder makes me dismiss everything else you say as the ravings of a right-wing stooge.
It's certainly nice for them that they've got people like you to argue against your own rights, though.
(P.S. to all my homies: I looked at the site traffic tracker, and this isn't the Kit who's a semi-regular here.)
But to my larger point, I didn't specifically say it's about women's rights. From the angle of these certain right-wingers, being anti-abortion isn't about women's rights at all in any area but one: Sex. It's about punishing so-called "sluts" and "loose women," just like Jason, coming to slice and dice anyone who dares to have sex in Camp Crystal Lake.
Happy Halloween.
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