GOPers NEVER try to impose values, per Iggy wrote:
Kavanaugh is a shoe in but what about reality? wrote:
Anyone paying attention to the Brett Kavanaugh nomination hearings this week? Did anyone catch his response to a Roe v. Wade question in which he sited a ruling in which he referred to contraception as “abortion inducing drugs”? What are your thoughts on that exchange and the difference between contraception and abortion? I recognize this topic is complex but I think it is useful to try and understand each sides point of view. But, conflating contraception and abortion is not helpful for either side of the abortion debate.
The fundamental disagreement about abortion in the USA, I think, lies in if a fetus should be defined as an autonomous human. Despite what each side will argue, there is not a definitive scientific or legal answer to that question.
Pro-lifers say a fetus, or even a zygote or embryo, is the same as a fully formed child. Thus, for pro-lifers the “baby” is their primary concern.
Pro-choicers say a fetus is not an autonomous human until it has taken its first breath or is capable of doing so on its own (some time around 22-24 weeks gestational age). Thus, for pro-choicers the mother is the focus of their concern.
If one can see this clearly, then I think one should be able to understand why each side is so passionate about their cause—one side truly believes “babies” are being murder and the other side truly believes people are trying to dictate to women what they do with their own body. Using each sides perspective and assuming they really believe what they are saying, one can see how each side can claim to be the more compassionate and how each side could view their position as trying to defend those (fetuses for the right, women for the left) who have traditionally been marginalized.
Where the argument starts to breakdown is when anti-abortion folks are also anti-contraception—and it is true that a very common position is to be both anti-abortion AND anti-contraception. Those two things are contradictory. If pro-lifers really want fewer abortions how can they also oppose easy access to contraception?
As noted in the links below modern, recent data from Colorado has clearly shown how free access to contraception significantly decreased abortions.
Another common association between political beliefs and pro-life views is the desire to decrease government spending on “social programs”—many of which are designed to help poor children get food, housing, education, and healthcare coverage. Thus, these two positions (anti-contraception /abortion and anti-spending on poor children) being held simultaneously by the same person make no sense. Because if pro-lifers want the government to end abortions which will result in more poor children but then they suddenly—after birth—no longer care about those “babies” and think they need to “stop whining and pull themselves up by the boot straps” the result will be a total disaster.
Again, the Colorado example has shown that as the use of contraception increases among poor women the abortion rate drops by a lot AND government spending drops.
The above is the major problem with this debate—that one side (pro-lifers) have no actual real world proposals to deal with this issue. They actual oppose actions that have been shown to reduce abortions. Simply saying people need to “accept Jesus”, “not have premarital sex”, or “reap what they have sewn “ is not public policy, it’s fantasy and not based on reality. Can a pro-lifer explain what they would be willing to actually do to address the issue of abortion—and the associated issue of poor children—other than banning abortion? How are you going to enforce your “don’t have premarital sex rule”? Are you going to force church attendance? What are your thoughts on Bristol Palin as an example of the success of your proposed policies?
Kavanaugh is a hardcore Catholic. Those folks not only believe that life begins at conception BUT also believe that preventing conception through contraception is a sin. So his comment is not too surprising in this context.
But, not to worry per Iggy only the Clinton’s want to impose their values on others (he likely knows this because Dinesh D’Souza—a convicted felon pardoned by Trump) told him so through his unbiased and totally factual Russian funded movie. It’s not like the GOP is trying to impose their values on anyone, thus Iggy’s politics are totally reality based and well thought out.
Plus, the Catholics need lots of unwanted kids so they can systematically rape them and cover it up. But, not to worry at least they vote the “right” way and support traditional family values.
That’s why I find the religious right the scariest segment. Their values are not only rooted on very poorly supported political rationale, it’s also grounded on their cockamamie spiritual beliefs. One of the easiest examples is that they not only believe the welfare system is unfair and ineffective (poorly supported politics rationale), it’s fundamentally even more important to them that poor and less educated women keep having unwanted babies. So they need to keep giving birth to babies not by their own choice while getting no help from the same group that wants those babies. It’s just fvcking bananas to me.