Posted on 11/13/2001 12:12:13 PM PST by fod
All I can say is there will be a large number of republicans seeking a new party. Maybe they will help remove the LP's pro-abort plank, who knows, stranger things have occurred.
You seem to be accepting the idea that two wrongs can make a right.
While the woman whom is raped is certainly a victim in the proper sense, the taking of a life cannot negate the initial act, but only introduces a second victim to the chain, thus worsening the over-all result.
In an age where death at childbirth was common, that was a more questionable manner, because it well seemed that God made a final selection at that time. Besides, at the time there was no real knowledge of what went on in the womb in the early weeks. This is no longer the case. A child conceived today has a full economic value and human life potential, including the fact that some few don't make it through medical problems, from the moment of conception. In this regard, they are often more valuable than most living persons who may have well already wasted a goodly portion of their lives.
I was getting ready to change my registration to LP and had it all filled out, but I couldn't bring myself to send it in. At this point, I'm inclined to side with Mark Crutcher, of Life Dynamics -- Republicans are worthless. But I won't join the LP with their current plank.
If they changed:
Recognizing that abortion is a very sensitive issue and that people, including libertarians, can hold good-faith views on both sides, we believe the government should be kept out of the question.
We condemn state-funded and state-mandated abortions. It is particularly harsh to force someone who believes that abortion is murder to pay for another's abortion.
It is the right and obligation of the pregnant woman, not the state, to decide the desirability or appropriateness of prenatal testing, Caesarean births, fetal surgery, voluntary surrogacy arrangements, and/or home births.
To:
We condemn state-funded and state-mandated abortions. It is particularly harsh to force someone who believes that abortion is murder to pay for another's abortion.
Then I'm 90% there.
Of course they are...they're not pro-life either. The Republican establishment, including many (maybe most) explicitly "pro-life" elected politicians, love abortion for it's social benefits (less welfare, fewer single parent families, lower taxes stemming from those two). They use Roe V. Wade as an excuse to do nothing while still courting the pro-life single issue vote. It's a neat, and very clever, scam they've been running for coming up on three decades now. As I've repeatedly mentioned on this board, the federal government currently has the power to virtually eliminate the practice of abortion if it wanted to by enacting powerful policies that would discourage abortion without restricting it. The fact that it has chosen to not use that power, particularly during times when it's been under the control of the "pro-life" Republican Party, is very telling.
Anyone who is voting Republican for this issue alone and waiting for them to do something is a fool.
Well all of us pro-life fools could join the LP and work toward more open borders. We could even follow Harry Browne's advice and not kill the bastards who attacked us. Or maybe if enough of us join the LP, they will list abortion as one of their main issues on their website.
Absent Allies
One of the pro-life movement's biggest frustrations has always been that the people who should be our biggest allies, the Republican Party and the church, have shown neither the character nor the courage to join the fight.
I include the church and politicians in the same section because I think they have entered into a kind of unholy alliance with each other. It's not that they all sat down in a room and cooked up some giant conspiracy, it's more like a conspiracy that naturally evolved from a common agenda.
It works something like this. First, the nation's politicians tell us to go away, claiming that abortion is a religious issue and not the sort of thing in which politicians should become involved. Then, the church tells us to go away becauuse abortion is a political issue and not something in which the church should become involved.
Of course, both know that this argument is complete rubbish, but the rhetoric surrounding it makes them feel more at ease with their cowardice, plus it gives them an excuse to throw us out of their offices.
It now appears that these guys intend to work this scam until we either give up or drop dead. That may sound farfetched, but I guarantee you that if the pro-life movement called a press conference to announce that it was going to surrender and disband, the three happiest institutions in America would be the abortion industry, the Republican Party, and the church.
In the case of the Republican Party, the first thing we need to understand is that it is totally unsuited for the abortion battle. Since the day this struggle began, it has always been clear that it is the political equivalent of a brawl in a waterfront bar. Unfortunately, the Republican Party is made up of a bunch of guys whose mammas dressed them for college. They might go into a waterfront bar, but when the first punch is thrown, the only thing you can be certain of is that you're about to hear the unmistakable pitter-patter of fine leather wingtips stampeding toward the door.
On the other hand, this is exactly the kind of fight that the Democratic Party relishes. Since the sixties, it has devolved into a political sanctuary for every kind of moral degenerate and social misfit known to man. In a political bar fight, they are totally amoral people who will lie, cheat, steal, or wallow in the filthiest cesspool, if that's what it takes to win. And they absolutely scare the Republicans to death.
A second problem with the GOP is that the gated-community, limousine liberals who control it are about as interested in abortion as a fish is in a bicycle. These people are motivated by money, and there is simply no money in saving babies.
The next time someone says to you that the right to life is a "core value" with the Republican Party, ask them if that's the same Republican Party which routinely
(a) backs pro-abortion candidates against pro-life candidates in the primaries,
(b) uses contributions from pro-lifers to help elect pro-abortion Republicans over pro-life Democrats,
(c) supports pro-abortion organizations like Republicans for Choice,
(d) awards influential party leadership positions to hard-core pro-aborts,
(e) votes to confirm pro-abortion judges to the federal bench,
(f) runs candidates for president who won't commit to name only pro-lifers to the Supreme Court, and
(g) appropriates taxpayer dollars to fund openly pro-abortion organizations like Planned Parenthood.
Anyone who thinks those are the actions of a political party which sees the right to life as a "core value" is about two french fries short of a Happy Meal."
This is very true. Abortion due to rape is morally wrong and destructive to all parties. But, I do believe that a raped pregnant woman should have a right to an "intact abortion", where the baby is removed from the mother alive and allowed to attempt survival if possible, as was mentioned in the article. I take this position because I believe no one should be forced to provide for another person for whom they bear no responsibilty. If she voluntarily had sex, and a pregnancy occured, then she and the father are responsible for the child that was conceived. But in the case of rape, there can be no question that she bears no responsibilty for the child that is conceived, however innocent that child is. It would be morally wrong for her to abort it, of course, precisely because the child is innocent. But, in this case, I think the "violinist" analogy works pretty well.
But, of course, none of this philosophising about when abortion should be legal, and when it shouldn't be, matters one iota to the central issue - that being that abortion is a phenomenon that goes beyond the capability of governments to control by simple restrictions. Abortion of early term babies is extremely easy to accomplish, and as long as the culture accepts it as a morally legitimate practice, it will continue to occur. Some of the highest abortion rates in the world belong to countries where abortion is entirely illegal. A cultural pathology requires a culturally based cure. Only once these pragmatic solutions have produced results should bans and restrictions be enacted, but even then only as symbolic confirmations of the society's improved moral condition.
So while we waste time and energy debating when abortion is a right, and when it's not, the masses, who never concern themselves with philosophical issues to begin with, continue to abort millions of babies without any concern for subjective conceptions of "unalienable rights."
He's on the right track, but he's much too easy on the Republican Party, especially those limo-liberals. These people are not stupid, they can easily make cold calculations about what the social costs would be if every woman in America who considers abortion were talked out of it. It would mean an explosion in the negative social indicators that they abhor - the country clubbers fear it because it will mean more taxes to fuel more welfare, and the "pro-family" utopians fear it because it will mean millions more "unconventional" families that will hasten the cultural retreat from the 50's ideal. Most rank and file pro-lifers would gladly accept the increased social burden that discouraging abortion would bring, but methinks that many of their leaders (abortion-is-okay-in-China Robertson, for example) secretly wouldn't.
I can't see anyone here arguing for that "right"
We condemn state-funded and state-mandated abortions. It is particularly harsh to force someone who believes that abortion is murder to pay for another's abortion.
That and overturn Roe/Wade
We could use your help, but that is your decision to make.
Thanks for your thoughtful input here.
No baby should die because it is termed to be invonvenient, and no mother should die for the sake of carrying a baby, come hell or high water, to a term which will prove terminal for one or both.
Thanks!
Oh, and FWIW, this Libertarian feels that HB is as moot in the political scene today as you are.
Thanks!
Oh, and FWIW, this Libertarian feels that HB is as moot in the political scene today as you are.
I think there are more us out there than most folk realize.
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