Never Give Up

Never Give Up

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Assault On Abortion Rights

A recent NYT article says midterm election gains have conservatives in several states daring to dream of overturning the hated Roe V. Wade decision. We seem to be in one of those periodic and inexplicable (to me) global swings to conservative tendencies.

I strongly lean toward an attitude I heard Dennis Miller express long ago that everyone ought to tend their own garden on the abortion issue. Another good point was made by Bill Clinton when he said abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.

I don't think much of the arguments of the religious right, either. They are self serving and hypocritical. I'm a little disgusted every time I hear someone describe themselves as "pro-life". They tend to REALLY like the death penalty. They just have the arrogance and self-righteousness to think they should be able to judge who should live or die. The proper term for them would be anti-abortion. That is exactly their goals and ideology. But "anti" has such a negative ring to it. Pro-life just sounds all warm and fuzzy. They get it wrong again when they call the pro-choice position "pro-abortion". That is rhetoric designed deliberately to demonize. No one is pro-abortion. Actually, that's probably not quite accurate. In a situation with a fetus having little or no chance of quality of life it's probably reasonable to advocate abortion.

It truly is an unsettling issue with few easy answers, especially as the fetus gets closer to term. But I have to come down on the side of it being a woman's decision to exercise control over her own bodily processes. Ultimately, there is always some risk to a woman's life or health during pregnancy. I don't think anyone has the right to criminalize her choice to not accept that risk.

No comments:

Post a Comment