I was discussing the topic of abortion with my co-blogger yesterday, and as luck would have it, I came across this wonderful article today (thanks to Weasel Zippers). Now as abhorrent the above interview is, I really wanted to discuss the larger topic of abortion as a whole.
See what my friend and I don't understand is how abortion can dictate one's political voting. Since 1973, abortions have been legal in the United States. It would take, as Legalized Pundit puts it, a constitutional miracle to overturn Roe v Wade, especially since nearly 40 years of precedent supporting this woman's rights issue has been established. So when a candidate announces their opinion on the subject, isn't a moot point? Lawmakers really have no way of changing this well established legal precedent. Yet pro-choicers vote overwhelmingly Democrat, and pro-lifers vote overwhelmingly Republican on an issue that has absolutely no effect on policy making.
Also, who is really actually pro choice? I mean, isn't everyone, or shouldn't everyone (outside of this whackjob), really be against abortion unless all other options have been exercised? It sorta seems like a last resort. But that's just me.
Remember when Justice Roberts was nominated for Chief Justice and abortion rights were going to go out the window? Or when W was elected, and abortion rights were in jeopardy? Exactly, nothing ever changed. The only thing W really did was a secondary issue to abortion, and it was ban federal funding for stem cell research resultant from abortions (actually something I completely disagree with). But it really had nothing to do with the overall issue of abortion.
Which of course brings me to the next topic surrounding abortion. Why is it, that one of the primary defenses for abortions are cases of rape and incest. Now I don't know the statistics so I'll probably end up eating my words later, but how common are abortions resultant from those two things? I suspect relatively rare.
Look in the grand scheme of things, it's hard for me to care too much about this topic because it will never directly affect me. So I guess I just don't understand the right's campaign to try and change an established precedent, or the left's council of fear, that says if you elect a Republican you're going to be forced to give birth to thousands of babies you otherwise would have aborted. It just seems like a tertiary issue when faced with global terrorism, a recession, and a slew of other social issues for which legal precedent hasn't been established.
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