Abortion, the polarizing issue

While I was a Republican, for 30 years, I held beliefs that I now know were completely indefensible. I kick myself for being so wrong for that long, but the Republican Party STILL hasn't changed those positions. I admit to having held views that won't stand up to challenge, but those who are still Republicans simply refuse to think their positions through far enough to even realize that they're wrong. One major failure is not considering the very real consequences of the proposed position. One of the most thought-free positions is on abortion.

Making abortion illegal

If you believe, as most Republicans do and the party itself does, that abortion should be illegal... that it should be prohibited by law... that it should be a crime, then you have to give serious consideration to many other aspects: We might start by considering the goal of the position... what we want to achieve by making abortion illegal.

The obvious response by those who are "pro-life" is that abortions will no longer occur. Is that good? Is that what we want? Do we want all conceptions to result in live birth? Even if we make exceptions for conceptions by rape, or for incompetent mothers, or for births that would kill the mother, is it good that all the remaining conceptions result in live birth?

If so, what is to happen to the babies? Obviously, many of those births were not wanted, or we wouldn't need the discussion about abortion. What is to happen to those babies that would have, without the law, been aborted? Are pro-lifers to assume that those people so "irresponsible" as to have wanted abortion will forcibly become loving, responsible parents? Some babies will be born to mothers who had good reason for not wanting that child. Some will feel incompetent to raise a child, and some will feel that they cannot support the baby financially. Without question, making abortion illegal will result in a great many more babies being born into poor family situations.

The very real fact is that, when abortion WAS illegal, those who could afford it still had abortions and were not punished. The illegality reduced the number of doctors willing to perform abortions, and raised the cost of abortions to the point where professional work was only done for well-to-do people. Poorer people had to take their chances with practitioners who either didn't have a profession to lose, or were so underground that they were closer to being butchers than doctors. One effect was many deaths and serious injuries from "alley" abortions, but another inevitable effect was that more unwanted babies were born into poorer families... the ones who could least afford them. Those favoring illegality of abortion must accept at least intellectual responsibility for the many poor-quality lives of the not-aborted children.

If the state is to demand that all babies must be born, despite objections from the mother or anyone else, does the state have any responsibility for the baby after birth?

If abortion is to be a crime, who is to be charged with the crime?

Most "pro-life" advocates will say, punish the doctor that performs the procedure. That, before Roe V. Wade took abortion out of the criminal realm, was what was supposed to happen. Punish the person who commits the offense. In effect, that is equivalent to punishing a hired assassin and not punishing anyone else involved in the crime, including the person who hired and paid the assassin. If abortion is classified as murder, as many pro-lifers maintain, then should it not be handled much the same as any murder for hire? How can the law NOT bring a (premeditated) murder charge against the mother, who not only paid someone for the act, but also actively participated in it? To be brutal... if abortion is murder, then the mother is guilty of actually holding the victim captive during the murder. As would be true in not charging the person who hired an assassin, not charging anyone but the doctor for the crime of abortion is simply an invitation to hire another assassin. If you consider abortion a crime, there is no reasonable way to avoid charging at least the would-have-become mother.

We hold fathers responsible for paternity, so if the father of the unborn child agreed to and perhaps paid for the abortion, should he not also be guilty of murder? Others are typically involved in the decision to abort or not, such as parents of the to-be mother and father. Should they not be charged as co-conspirators? If abortion is truly murder, then all those involved should be charged and punished.

The BEST-case results of making abortion illegal is that a great many babies will be forcibly born into situations where they are unwanted and perhaps poorly cared for.

WORST-case is what happened before Roe V. Wade, and what would happen again. People will find ways to cause "miscarriages", which were not illegal but accomplished the same result. A few doctors will be jailed, never to practice again. Some hacks will carelessly and dangerously fill the demand for illegal abortions.

Abortion is not a great solution to the problem of an unwanted pregnancy, but it is often better than the alternative of bringing an unwanted baby into the world. There is NOBODY better qualified to make that decision then the potential parents who will have to bear responsibility for the child, if born. Making abortion illegal is the state making a blanket rule to REPEAL that choice... saying that, regardless of the circumstances, every pregnancy must result in a live birth.

It's a position that makes no sense. It cannot help but produce terrible results, and LONG-TERM destructive results. Whatever handicaps the unwanted child will suffer through will affect that child for a lifetime. We know the effects of poor child-rearing... they impact both the unwanted child AND society for the lifetime of the child.

The "pro-life" position that seeks to make abortion illegal is untenable. If life begins at conception, and destroying an embryo anytime after conception is murder, it follows that prevention of conception or live birth are the only acceptable choices. Anything that causes deliberate miscarriage, even "Morning-after" solutions must be equally illegal, because conception has already occurred. If human life, with human rights, begins at conception, then the parents of that embryo are responsible from conception forward... responsible to do everything reasonable to ensure eventual live birth. If that IS the case, then there is potential for acts of negligent homicide... accidental but preventable miscarriages for which someone must be held accountable. That means defining, monitoring, and judging by standards of acceptable or reasonable care and protection of the embryo during pregnancy.

ANY law that does not consider the likely results of the legislation, or does not provide appropriate and just penalties, or does not provide for enforcement, is a terrible law... a law that should not exist.

If you are stuck on the position that a human life, with rights, begins at conception, then you do have alternatives, but those alternatives must not involve forcing pregnant women to deliver and take responsibility for the child. We can reduce abortions to a much lower level without the use of force, by solving other problems created by government. We have laws that make adoption difficult, resulting in too many unadopted children. We can remove those laws, and make adoption a better solution.

Our government does innumerable things that make abortion more necessary and desirable. Government taxes and regulations drive up the cost of all the basics required for life, which impacts the poor most severely, often making the birth of a child an unbearable additional expense. Regulations increase the cost of an additional child, in health care, housing, food, education, car seats, inoculations, clothing, and many other and ongoing expenses.

As is true in many other areas, the two old political parties have managed to polarize America into two extreme camps... pro-life versus pro-choice. They play on our emotions to demonize the opposite view, trying to convince us to choose a side and stand in angry opposition to the other. Once chosen, we become part of a constant battering that backs all of us into opposite corners where most of us will spend our time, not examining the issue, not thinking the problem through, but just accumulating ammunition to oppose the other view. That is not problem solving, it's polarization, and it simply makes the problem worse.

The Neverending War

I've tried to avoid becoming caught up in the minutiae and complexities of our disastrous involvement in the Middle East. One reason was because there are plenty of problems here at home that need attention. Another was that the War in Iraq and/or War on Terrorism is simply far too complex to make sense of. Despite application of modern technology, great gobs of money, and tens of thousands of personnel, war remains chaotic in the extreme... far more than unpredictable, it's not even comprehensible, much less controllable, by those in charge of waging it. Just yesterday, reports began appearing from the assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse.

By what stretch of the imagination can one accept the loss (so far) of 2700 American military deaths, 20,000 wounded, and $317 billion spent, with negative results, as anything but total failure? Do you believe that our massive government and military can really be that incompetent? Few people view government incompetence as more inevitable than I do, but even I cannot attribute such results to mere incompetence.

WHY WE ARE AT WAR?

Why did our government invade Iraq and Afghanistan? We were told that the invasion of Afghanistan was to capture Bin Laden and/or remove the Taliban from the control that allowed them to hide bin Laden. Despite several years and mega-bucks, none of that has been accomplished. Why then, Iraq? There are a multitude of responses to that question, depending on whom you ask and on what day. Was it because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, or because he was assisting Al-Qaeda? Was it to assist Israel in strengthening their position? Was it to gain control of a source of oil?

The failing War in Afghanistan, plus the failing War in Iraq, were combined and transformed into the amorphous War on Terrorism. Trying to understand anything specific about the War on Terrorism is like trying to talk about a War on Evil. We don't know what terrorism is, or even that it is always bad. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter... and that has always has been true. Our own ancestors, during our Revolutionary War, were considered terrorists (and traitors) by the British, and properly so. There will always be terrorists somewhere, and setting out to destroy them militarily tends to create even more of them. Politically, the beauty of the War on Terrorism is that it can never really be won or lost, and it can realistically be waged forever.

That brings me to my point... the answer to why we are at war. It's a simple answer. It's an answer that we expected and discussed, but seem to have forgotten about amid the complexity of Iraq.

By the end of the 1980's, we had suffered through a nervous 40-some years of Cold War, often "on the brink" of nuclear holocaust, huge spending on offensive and defensive arms, espionage, communists under every rock, "duck and cover", fallout shelters, and many sidestream battles supported by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, each of which could have triggered all-out nuclear war. Korea, Vietnam, Soviet-Afghan, Angola, El Salvador, and Nicaragua... the Cuban Missile crisis and the Berlin War... all hot spots that kept the world in daily fear of "the button" being pushed.

Remember when the Soviet Union fell apart? For 40 years, we had been one of the two big guns on the planet, and suddenly we were the only big gun left. Remember our discussions about "no more enemies"? Our government and our military... our "military industrial complex" that Eisenhower warned us about, had geared up to take on the massive Soviet war machine, and suddenly there was no more Soviet Union... no enemy... no need for all the might we had built up.

There is one inescapable result of war, or the threat of war... growth of government power. Those who work inside government, especially those who make a career of it, love, and profit by, the growth of government power. War scares people, and justifiably so, and when people are scared they're more susceptible to believing what their government says, and more willing to sacrifice anything necessary to avoid war, or to support a war if they're told it's needed.
Herman Goring, the founder of the Nazi Gestapo, explained it very clearly:

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

There is no other explanation needed for the wars we are currently involved in. Despite all the propagandizing about the need for our Middle East involvement, the simple truth is that war is good for politicians and all who deal with them. Government grows and profits, and firms who supply government grow and profit. The rest of us lose liberties, endure high taxes, and sacrifice our young people as war fodder while those involved with government get wealthy and gain still more power.

"War is the health of the State" said Randolph Bourne. He did not mean the health of a nation, or the health of a nation's people, but the health of the STATE... the health of government and those who deal with it, at the expense of the rest of us.

The people of the United States have again been led down the primrose path, seduced into support for an utterly inexcusable war, and conned into surrendering still more freedom to those we call "leaders". Not just a few "crazies" at the top, but our Congress, which hasn't so much as even raised a serious stink in opposition to the insanity. Why? Because our war has nothing to do with terrorism, and everything to do with two colluding parties maintaining a death grip on control of our nation. They are, together, willing to do anything to insure that government becomes more powerful while the populace quietly suffers. Conspiracy? Damned right it's a conspiracy, of all those benefiting from massive government, and at the expense of those who don't. Which group are you in?