She just turned 24 years old. When I was that age I held the same position as did most people my age. I regret holding that position now many years later.
Tomi is conservative on just about everything else. I’ll give her a pass on this one because I was in the same boat when I was that age. I think it will change when she has children.
Do people become more pro-life as they get older?
Or do they just see their potential need for abortions diminish?
In my early 20’s I remember thinking something similar, though I’d always thought that abortion was an abomination and should never be thought of as a backup plan for failed contraception. It seemed hypocritical, on the surface, to be against government regulation and for government regulation at the same time. I was also relatively apolitical then. It didn’t take me too long to realize how naive and gullible I was and to rectify my thinking.
Youth and inexperience are her stumbling blocks, here. She could use some mentoring but she’ll have to humble herself to accept it. That is hard for a kid to do when she’s trying to make it in the big world.
(Tomi is conservative on just about everything else. I’ll give her a pass on this one because I was in the same boat when I was that age. I think it will change when she has children.)
I agree. Being a conservative or libertarian usually means having a specific position regarding a long list of topics. I agree with Tomi on everything else, and frankly did have her position regarding abortion when I was her age. Not only that, but on paper the pro-choice position IS much more consistent with the libertarian small government position. It’s only when one realizes that at a certain point the fetus becomes a baby who can feel and who can survive outside the womb does one realize that it’s not as simple as “get the government off my back”. People are NOT free to take other people’s lives and call that a freedom. We are all about the government staying out of our lives as long as we do not hurt the rights of others. And if the baby is considered a live person, the mother’s “choice”, at least at a certain point of the baby’s development, sure would take away the baby’s right to life. And that’s where a pure libertarian position would be akin to the right to murder another human being.
This is not obvious to most people, and therefore I do give Tomi the benefit of the doubt. I hope we don’t become like the liberals who would immediately throw someone out of the movement if they deviate even in the slightest to their orthodoxy over every single position they espouse. Tomi is a lioness, and I hope she gets closer to my position, but I’m sure not willing to act like a liberal would and want her out of the conservative movement!