Got a few good laughs out of this article:
There's virtually no recognition of the fact that abortion care is already rare in this country, and getting rarer.
Over a million abortions in the US. And that's rare.
What a hoot.
Oh, I know what she means-- she means that getting an abortion should be as easy as getting one's teeth cleaned, and since it's not, it's rare. Obviously she is manipulating the language to make her point, but what people mean when they say they want it rare is not that they want a lot less of it that is occurring now.
Poor women and teenagers in particular have already had their "right to choose" taken away, thanks to numerous and onerous state and federal restrictions passed over the years, including the Hyde Amendment that gutted abortion funding.
The sense of entitlement is just astounding. Not only does Joyce Arthur want abortion completely unrestricted-- she wants you to pay for it. You are expected to pay for the consequences of other people's actions-- to do away with the product of a functioning bodily system, i.e. the reproductive system.
Health care is about fixing a non-functioning body part, not impeding it.
A candidate's strong pro-choice stance on abortion can win elections.
What another laugh. Tell it to the candidates on Emily's List.
The abortion issue is not just about abortion. That's just the deceptive tip of the iceberg - we're being fooled by the way anti-choicers present the issue. They set it up as a conflict between a woman's right to abortion and a fetus's right to life. But that's a false premise. The issue is really about a woman's right to life not just her right to abortion per se.
That one really made me howl.
She's afraid the fetal rights debate! The woman who wrote "fetuses are not that important" does not like the "right to abortion versus the right to life" framework.
Proponents of legalized abortion often say that the debate is over and the public does not support fetal rights.
Okay then, the woman-versus-fetus argument should be a big winner for the pro-abortion movement.
By all means! Make the argument that the unborn child does not deserve rights. Make the argument that women are supreme.
That argument did work for a while.
Until the pro-life movement made Americans discover the fetus.
There has been a cultural shift. More and more people acknowledge that the fetus is not a blob of tissue; that he is human and worthy of love. Most people acknowledge that the fetus should have some legal protection.
The notion that the right to abortion is about the woman's right to life is laughable and most people can see right through it if they step back and think about it.
Practically no woman in this day and age is in danger of death because of pregnancy. 99.99% of all women in Canada (and the US) go through pregnancy without dying.
So that's not the issue. The issue is women who land themselves in hot water by disobeying parents by having sex, commit adultery, etc and are not willing to face up to their actions.
So they consider desperate measures.
Their right to life is not being denied.
And most people who stop and think about it realize that.
It's the woman's responsibility if she is stupid enough to shove a coathanger up her crotch or hire an illegal abortionist.
Her right to her own body is not denied in the least. The problem is that her irrational actions lead to her death.
We can't build policy and laws based on desperation and its consequent stupid actions. Think of the assinine measures it would engender if we applied that concept. We could legalize any number of now illegal actions based on the notion that if they are not allowed to perform this action, they will die--i.e. rob banks, deal drugs, etc
The inability of the left to see the ludicrousness of this position has been one saving grace for the pro-life movement. They are so bereft of the notion of personal responsibility--a notion that most adults manage to grasp by the time they're 30-- that people don't buy into their argument. This is why Joyce Arthur is having a tough time making this pitch, even among left-wing kindred spirits.
Countless millions more are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term when they can barely even take care of themselves, let alone a baby or another baby.
People can place their babies for adoption. That's not an excuse.
Because make no mistake - for our enemies, the fight is not simply about whether (or when or how) a woman can access an abortion. For them, it's about attacking the core human rights of women in general. It's about keeping women "barefoot and pregnant and-chained-to-the-bed" as Ian MacLeod puts it.
That old canard. As if. As if we're out to make sure every woman is pregnant, every woman is helpless and in the kitchen. Gimme a break. The vast majority of pro-lifers couldn't care less what the average woman decided to do with herself, so long as she doesn't kill babies.
When abortion rights are championed and secured, the result will be stronger democracy, a more egalitarian society, and truly progressive politics. It's a win-win for everyone.
Except the unborn. She forgot the unborn.
They always seem to do that. They don't like the issue of the unborn child. They have to make it about something other than what we want to make it about-- it's about equality, the threat of making women barefoot and pregnant, feminism, theocracy, etc.
It's never about the unborn child.
If there was ever a true debate about fetal rights, the left would lose.
That's why Joyce Arthur has to remind them "what it's all about".
H/T: Evangelical Perspective
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