Who Owns Your Body?
Abortion
is a religious issue, period. Abortion is interference with God's plan.
The Taliban didn't have a problem controlling abortion. They had religious
control of their government and they could kill anyone they wanted any time
they wanted if that person was perceived to have violated their religious
rules. If our government would only implement God's plan, we could abolish
abortion too, just like the Taliban and oh, what a perfect world some people
believe it would be.
The problem is, the church defines God's plan. Ignoring the many different interpretations that seem to change as necessary to fit any given situation, the church has said that abortion is wrong and that women should be controlled as to protect God's plan. All that of course, meaning that women should not be able to decide what to do with their own bodies, that the spirit and word of the Constitution should be ignored and that conservative principles mean nothing to anti-abortion Christians.
But, There's This Other Problem
We
have a constitution and we have conservative principles that insist people
should be responsible for themselves and free from unwanted interference from
the government or the church. That constitution was designed to protect
us from a government like that Afghanistan had under the Taliban. If
you are an anti-abortion Christian, you probably think controlling other people
is alright as long as it meets with your beliefs. You may argue that
you are anti because you want to protect unborn children. That's fine.
As long as it is your opinion. When you try to convert our government
into an intrusive manager of individual freedoms, that's something else. That's
exactly what the Taliban had in Afghanistan and exactly what you can find
today in Iran. The idea of a powerful central government that can control
everyone using Christian guidelines plays well with a large group of religious
right-wing Republicans, but it distorts and marginalizes the integrity of
true conservative values.
Any Story Will Do
A
quick look on the internet gave great insight into the anti-abortion mentality.
Website after website carries fictitious data that warns against abortion
and points out a connection between abortion and every possible ailment you
could imagine. There is a message in the message that exposes the dishonesty
of the anti-abortion position. When you have to stoop to making up phony
data, you don't have a case. There can be no legitimate argument around
abortion because anti-abortion rhetoric is polluted with dishonest claims.
The first anti-abortion website I looked at this morning had a big warning
that abortion was dangerous because it was surgery and had many serious complications.
Well, the idiot who wrote that, failed to point out that surgical abortion
is much safer than carrying a pregnancy to term! We know that adding that
little piece of information would have taken the bite out of the argument,
so it gets left out. Yes, there are many many other examples, but the
point is, nearly every anti-abortion website was packed with false data or
lies about abortion. The people who argue their position with lies and
want a powerful intrusive government cannot be traditional conservatives.
They may be Republicans, but they are the very reason that the Republican
Party is in big trouble.
The Wrong End of The Stick
Religious
right camp Republicans found a new argument in comparing abortion to slavery.
That argument is about as clear as mud. They like to point to Lincoln
(as in Abraham, the founder of the Republican Party), unquestionably a great
president. The following quote from Lincoln has been used to prove the
religious anti-abortion point:
"if there be any man who does not believe that slavery is wrong in the three aspects which I have mentioned, or in any one of them, that man is misplaced, and ought to leave us. While, on the other hand, if there be any man in the Republican Party who is impatient over the necessity springing from its actual presence, and is impatient of the constitutional guarantees thrown around it, and would act in disregard of these, he too is misplaced standing with us. He will find his place someplace else; for we have a due regard, so far as we are capable of understanding them, for all these things. This, gentle- men, as well as I can give it, is a plain statement of our principles in all their enormity."
Did you have a little trouble getting the point as it applies to abortion? I'm afraid this is about as long a stretch as I have ever seen. If anything, slavery relates to abortion in the same way anti-abortion relates to choice. On one hand, there is a case of people exercising absolute control over others. On the other hand, there is individual freedom to make decisions and control one's own body. In a desperate effort to find a fundamental flaw in the idea that women should enjoy personal freedom over their own bodies, some Republicans travel so far from conservative ideas as to want to substitute the word "abortion" for the word "slavery" and look back at famous speeches by Lincoln and others saying, "See! Even Lincoln new abortion was wrong!" If you want to have a little fun with this, substitute the words and read some of the pro-slavery speeches of Lincoln's time. Wow, does it sound like the anti-choice religious zealots of today!
Is It Really A Right?
A
woman's legal right to abortion is anchored and the Constitution and upheld
by Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), United States Supreme Court. It
is the law. The foundational Constitutional artifact is (in part) in
the 14th Amendment as follows: "...nor shall any State deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;..."
In reality, the finding of the court upheld a conservative principle that individuals have a right against unsanctioned invasion of privacy by the government. It's a, "What right does the government have to look into my body?" argument and the Supreme Court found that the government didn't belong there. Conservatives have known and argued that for a long time. Religious zealots, unconcerned with individual liberties, hold that the government can be used to control individuals based on biblical interpretations and that their religion has greater value than that of other peoples' or the Constitution itself; at least in the case of abortion.
We all have to decide to become part of a religious state (think Iran) or a free society as envisioned by the founders of the United States of America as they developed its Constitution. I choose America, I choose freedom!
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