Life and Choice

[davhill]

Can one still be a Democrat if one has strong pro-life moral convictions? I am a Catholic anti-war, anti-abortion, anti-capital punishment activist. The Republicans are mounting a very successful initiative and making strong inroads among my fellow believers. I have been trying to counter their efforts in articles and individual conversations. Those who have in the past tended to vote Democrat are now saying that they won't vote at all. Those who support Republicans do so very aggressively.
I have not found much support among my progressive friends. I want to hear them say abortion is evil but the freedom to make wrong decisions is also important. Instead I keep hearing that more abortion is better choice, not a desperate resort, that the taxes of those of us who sincerely find it morally repugnant should be used to fund it. Sometimes they make as little sense as those who advocate the death penalty for abortion provider.
I am getting very discouraged maintaining common sense middle ground.

[Randers]

1. Most people that I have noticed around here

do not say it is a good thing - but they don't want themselves or others condemned for it either.

[Cheswick2.0]

2. the common ground

everyone makes their own choice what is best for them. I won't ever support legislation forcing women to have abortions who do not want them.

[Iris]

3. A lot more people might be more sympathetic to pro-life folks

if they didn't vote Republican.

That's where it all falls apart. If they really care about unwanted pregnancies making it to term, than WHY do they support politicians who do everything they can to make life hell for working people, women and the underprivileged? Why would they vote for someone who seems to have more concern for big insurance companies than they do for the healthcare of the average American? Why would they vote for someone who thinks public schools are "straight from the Hell of communisim"? Why would they vote for someone who laughs at women on death row? Why would they vote for someone who thinks making adequate childcare available is not this responsiblity of the government? Why would they vote for people who want to repeal the Family and Medical Leave Act?

I could go on but I'm getting angrier by the key stroke.

[lastliberalintexas]

10. And why would they vote for someone

who only shows an interest in the fetus/child when it is in the womb? Why would they vote for someone who opposes: additional healthcare protections for children, monies for daycare, and *living* wages for Americans so as to allow one parent to stay home if s/he so choses?

And most importantly, why would they vote for someone who only wants the fetus/child to be born so that s/he can be killed in a war for oil?

[Iris]

13. See?

I knew I could spread the anger!

Good points, all.

Esp. the oil war. Did you happen to hear Fresh Air today?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. the official Dem position on abortion is,

I believe, that it should be safe, legal, and rare

I know a handicapped girl (can't walk or talk) who was raped. The rape resulted in a pregnancy. Her mother, a Roman Catholic, chose to terminate the pregnancy because doctors told her going to term could result in her daughter's death. Don't think for a moment that deciding on abortion is an easy choice or something that a person or their family forgets easily. In this particular case, I feel the monster who violated this girl was evil, and the abortion a very difficult choice. I will always go with the right of a woman to make this very difficult decision.

[Trajan]

5. Wow .... interesting ....

Though I support most all of your stands: I do not support the Anti-Abortion stand .... But I am generally anti-war (last resort only) and mostly anti-death penalty (I dont feel I have so much of a problem hanging child rapists and murderers, even though I still abhor the state taking a life ) ....

No man can perfectly conform to a group of ideals ... no 'perfect' Democrat or Republican exists ..... everyone disagrees with SOME part of the party line ...

As a former catholic (now atheist) : I stopped allowing the church's teaching to guide my personal ethos long ago ....

While abortion is sad .... the freedom to control one's own body overrides the desire of a portion of the public to live in a perfect world ..... no world is perfect, and freedom is hard enough to exercise as it is ..... The line is hard to draw when it comes to abortion: I choose to maintain absolute volition over my own body ... even to that which grows inside of it ...

[Warpy]

6. What you need to remembr is that your opinion on abortion

ends at your own skin. That is the boundary. Believing that fetal life takes precedence over a living, thinking woman's life is your opinion, and is not shared by most of the rest of us. You are fully entitled to your opinion. You are not entitled to push this opinion off on your fellow citizens in the form of law.

It is entirely consistent to support choice as part of a prolife viewpoint, since the woman is also entitled to her life and her decision about whether or not she wants to risk that life on a pregnancy she didn't intend. Most women still choose to go through the pregnancy. Some don't.

The Pope himself has said that judging a candidate's moral suitability for office must be on more than one issue. We have a man who violates treaties, starts one sided wars aginst nonthreatening countries, robs the poor to fatten the rich, and giggles over sending people to their deaths in Texas prisons.

I think the choice is pretty clear.

[davhill]

16. My own skin

All my opinions end at my own skin. I never said that one human being's life takes presidence over any other human being's life. Many people think the killing of thousand's of Iraqi men women and children ( some of them,I am sure,unborn) was a good thing because it somehow makes us safer. I recognize that they are entitled to their opinions, yet I will continue to attempt to convince them that they are fatally wrong.

[jdj]

25. I'm sorry that is not an opinion. That is misinformation,

debunked here almost every single day. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We are not safer. We were misled. We were lied to. 1000 + soldiers were sacrificed.

You need to counter that lie, WE ARE NOT SAFER, not a bit.

[davhill]

29. If they sincerely feel safer

It is an opinion

[Pithlet]

7. About the taxes thing

We don't get to pick and choose where our particular tax dollars go. We all pay them, and then elect those we feel will use those tax dollars the best way for all of us as a society, and hopefully the most efficiently. Sometimes our tax dollars are going to be used in ways that we don't like. If we all got to pick and choose how our tax dollars are spent, and what they support, then nothing would ever get done.

I can sympathize with the pro-life position even if I am dead set against it. Where it gets stuck in my craw is when those same people with your position want to enforce it for everyone else regardless of how they feel about it. Choice is there whether you are for it or not. And it most likely will always be. Enough people have decided that it is a right that all women are entitled to. Taking away tax dollars only makes that choice less affordable, and makes it only truly a choice for those who can afford it. One can only make that moral decision for themselves if they have the means. That, to me, is not acceptable.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

8. It depends

on whether you think the abortion issue is the most important issue there is, trumping war, privacy, homelessness, education, and any other issues for which you may not agree with the republican platform. I happen to agree with almost all of the Democratic platform, but there's nothing that says that if you disagree with any of a party's platform that you can't support the party at all.

[politicat]

9. you are seamlessly against unnecessary death. That's okay.

I may disagree with you on the one point, but at least you have the courage to say if it's wrong to kill a fetus, it's wrong to kill the already born. That ranks you 100000000% higher in my eyes than those on the pro-birth side who think it's totally okay to force the kid to grow up in poverty and humiliation and then kill him later in a war or with a lethal injection or in a gang battle because that's the only career path open to him.

I don't agree on your assessment of abortion as "evil" and I find the use of that word very troubling (I'm coming to the conclusion that it's a very dangerous word to throw around) but I can respect your choice to see things that way. I grew up Catholic, and so I know where you're coming from. (I'm no longer so.) I hope that you're allowing for other people to make the decision about contraception the same way you're allowing them to make as you put it, the wrong decision about abortion. Part of the reason I left the church was the emphasis on legislating private behavior when there was so much public morality that needed to figured out!

I do think you need to understand that your taxes almost never fund abortions, and have not for 20 some odd years.

When I come up against someone I disagree with on an issue like this, I try and get that person to agree with this statement: What's good for you may not be what's good for me, but while our needs don't coincide, they can coexist.

Fair nuff?

Politicat

[Bunny]

11. Please.

Why do you think your progressive "friends" have to say that "abortion is evil but the freedom to make wrong decisions is also important"?

That is SO not the point. The point is, and always has been, the right of the woman to have autonomy over her own body. The freedom to not be FORCED by the state to be an incubator. Would you like the state to FORCE you to donate a kidney to someone so they won't die? I doubt that.

Why not settle for having your friends say that abortion is often a sad experience, but the woman must be able to make the choice that is right for her? And who on earth is telling you that "more abortion is better choice"? I find this all a little hard to believe.

Oh, and by the way, it's vote Democratic, not "vote Democrat". Funny how some people keep insisting on dropping that little -ic, isn't it?

[politicat]

12. One other thing, Dave...

And this is from my husband, who was reading over my shoulder....

He says "He's got 15 seconds worth of speech on the matter. That's his input."

My husband truly believes that women should make this decision exclusively. Just as he wishes that women had no control over his body in terms of a vasectomy or other reproductive health issues (his ex wife prevented him from getting a vasectomy by refusing to sign the waiver for 10 years when he had stated very firmly that his genes were too broken to be passed down), he believes that men have no right at all before the child born to make any decisions about continuing or not a pregnancy. Or, more precisely, he believes that men have 1/1,612,800 input that women do in the matter. (That being the amount of contribution disparity between the two genders.)

He is strongly pro-choice, of course, and votes that way because he feels he has to until this subject is moot, but he also works to educate other men that their attitude is entirely misguided because men cannot possibly understand what bearing a child costs a woman. He figured it in dollar terms a few months ago, and the cost of a pregnancy he feels should be in the range of $100,000 because of the labor and hours and healthcare it requires.

He respectfully asks that you consider what is the real interest most men have and why they are involved in the debate at all.

Politicat

[davhill]

15. What real interest I have

My interest is that of the guy who yells "Soylent Green is people". I do not want people to overlook humanity whether it directly effects me or not. I do not believe the state has any business throwing women in jail because they choose to terminate a pregnancy nor to I believe it has any business punishing those medical personnel who take compassion upon them. I only wish Democrats would concentrate more upon the "rare" part of "safe, legal and rare". For example, has the abortion rate actually gone up with the Bush economy? If so we should be screaming the fact from the rooftop. We should be working for a just society that does not extract unbearable financial and social costs upon parents. That's my interest.

[politicat]

18. CDC records are incomplete, infortunately.

Last I checked, abortion does go up when the economy is bad.

But... rare's only going to happen when we stop trying to shoe-horn in abstinence only education.

Abortion or infanticide has been part of the human culture since time immemorial. We WILL limit our populations, and chimp and ape studies prove this.

So it's one of those places where the Church has a disconnect between their aims. We don't have enough water to support unlimited reproduction. Something's gotta give.

Politicat

[Iris]

20. "We WILL limit our populations"

After the Andrea Yates horror, I read a small snippet about postpartum depression research that indicates there is a period of time after a woman gives birth when she is prone to kill the child she just delivered - in evolutionary terms, this would provide a way to elminate a life that might bring down the rest of her family.

Of course, no one took that ball and ran with it. Imagine a biological instinct that would indicate women have a vested interest in making such decisions for herself and/or her family.

[noiretextatique]

21. democrats do focus on the "rare" part

since they tend to support contraception and family planning, in general. it's the other side that is not as stable in its positions. as you must know, some "pro-life" folks are also against sex education and contraceptives. the "gag rule" on abortion has hindered the family planning work of organizations, e.g., planned parenthood. and since planned parenthood is now in the primary care business, that "rule" also hinders their ability to provide that care.
democrats have the sensible position on this issue already, so there is no need for them to triangulate incoherence and inconsistency.
i understand where you are coming from, and i hear your sincerity and respect your position...but it seems you are trying to put the cart before the horse.
as you write: "We should be working for a just society that does not extract unbearable financial and social costs upon parents"...i agree.
however: we live in an UNUST society that DOES extract unbearable financial and social costs upon parents, and female parents in particular. we can't ignore that reality as we work towards changing it.

[jdj]

27. I think it speaks for democratic politicians that they keep their

trap shut. Since most of them are men, it shows respect for women that they don't presume to speak for us. If they did, we'd tell them to shut the fuck up.

[noiretextatique]

14. i find war as morally repugnant as you do

perhaps more so because i do not want my tax dollars to support any mass killings for ideological, geo-political or corporate purposes. i have no problem with my tax dollars going to support HEALTHCARE for those who need it, including those who happen to be women.
i do not understand why you don't want to pay for abortion, yet you mention nothing about your tax dollars funding a criminal justice system that still punishes people with death, and a government that spends billions of dollars to kill people abroad.
perhaps it was just an oversight, but i think in the scheme of things, there are more immediate priorites than controlling women's choices and lives...and giving women no option other than back-allies if they want to terminate pregnancies. sorry...that's not a "pro-life" position.

[Iris]

17. Especially a war on women

who have not traditionally had their fair share of the power pie.

[hippiegranny]

19. pro-life people

So many of these folks think the term "life" begins and ends at the womb. They care nothing about the children, just out of high school, not even of legal drinking age, being sent to die for Haliburton profits. The disconnect is mind-boggling to me.

[jdj]

26. I call them fetus fetishists.

It's safe cause it's in someone else.

And it's not about the fetus, it's about me-tus. (my stupid rhyme). They're working out all their own internal issues with these babies, it's not about the child at all, it's their own anger and sense of victimization and need to be rescues. Projection from hell.

[samtob]

32. You believe this?

You think pro life people could care less about their own kids past high school? really?

[Orangepeel]

22. sure a Democrat can be pro-life

(and besides, Roe v Wade IS a common sense middle ground that allows states to put restrictions on late term abortions as long as provisions are made that allow women to protect their own health)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3534-2004Sep7.html

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 8, 2004; Page A06

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's arbiter of doctrinal orthodoxy, has given Roman Catholic voters leeway under certain circumstances to vote for politicians who support abortion rights, U.S. Catholic officials said yesterday.

...

"However, there could be circumstances where a voter, bearing in mind the primacy of the life issue, supports the candidate for other serious reasons," she said. "Each Catholic is called to consider these issues from a faith perspective and to weigh the candidates' positions very carefully before voting."

Gibbs added that "the church speaks on issues, not on individuals. The church never tells someone who to vote for."

[lostnfound]

23. It is discouraging at times however..

I think it is worth not jumping on the bandwagon in either direction. I.e., don't start calling yourself 'pro-choice' to alleviate your dissonance and don't give up your right to stay a Democrat if you feel in sync with most Democratic positions.

1. Abortion rates dropped during Clinton years as they are tied to economics.
2. Society currently provides almost zero real support for motherhood (i.e., health care for poor children, subsidized health care, strong sense of community) and zero support for preventing unwanted pregnancies (i.e., birth control, positive strong female role models on TV (think teenage self-esteem), protection for abused teens).
3. Roe v Wade was decided primarily by Republican-appointed Supreme Court Justices. The vote was 6 to 3; justices appointed by Republicans voted 5 to 1 in favor of it; justices appointed by Democrats voted 2 to 1 against it.
4. The vast majority of abortions are done in the first 3 months; and a large percentage (probably >50%) of conceptions are miscarried in first 3 months.
5. With war and fascism, you are talking about a structure of evil in which it becomes increasingly difficult for individuals to act in a moral way. With abortion, if you believe it is evil, you are talking about individual acts of evil.
6. Why wouldn't the law force people to donate blood or a spare kidney to save another life? Or to contribute money to feed starving children on the other side of the world? Obviously no 'natural law' causes such actions to occur, whereas pregnancy will generally run its course. But it is worth thinking about the seriousness of the call to protect life in one circumstance if the other circumstance is completely 'ignorable'.
7. What is the specific cost to a woman of a specific pregnancy? Not financial, but physical, emotional, and psychological. Individual lives are very complicated and pregnancy is a very demanding condition. Real life includes some horrors beyond description. Laws are black and white. If God wants us to use the "force of law" to force a 13 year old to carry to full term..well, I think He needs to put it in writing. No offense, God, but my moral judgment just ain't prepared for such a leap of faith.
8. You don't say whether your beliefs stem from a Christian value system, but if they do, ponder this: do the Gospels portray Jesus as using government power to correct the evils in society? do they ever show him using force or threats to stop one person from doing harm to another? I think the answer to these questions is no (but I'm no Bible scholar, so I could be wrong). It's easy to imagine Christ gently counselling a pregnant woman, healing her spiritually, moving her heart to be whole and open to life..and impossible to imagine a Christ that would have called the Roman guards to put her in prison so that she didn't harm the fetus. Sometimes I think we try to use government to make reforms when what we need is 'faith the size of a mustard seed'.

On the other hand, if you look back in history, it would be tough to distinguish Democrats from Republicans in their love for war. Though we consistent-life-lovers feel more at home with the D's, they do betray us too.. :-(

[jdj]

24. Look here, republicans are not pro-life.

They have the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. They have not changed Roe one bit, the only inroad they made, the no health exception for mother late-term abortion ban, has been overturned.

Never has there a riper moment for the republicans to get rid of Roe, and I believe there never will be a moment like this again, or if there is it will be decades. All they have done is get a whole bunch of poor suckers to vote for them, which is all they set out to do in the first place.

This is a private issue, whether you give women a clinic, or have them resort to coat hangers, or throwing themselves down the stairs, or jumping off the porch. It does not have anything to do with your personal political affiliation.

These fetus fetishists are playing right into the hands of some very shrewd political operators. There isn't much you can do about that, but ask them if the republicans are so pro-life why they haven't overturned Roe, or even ATTEMPTED to. They aren't gonna.

This is another thing that inspired my pretend bumper sticker: "Barnum/Cheney 2004. Because there's a sucker born every minute."

[walldude]

28. Your title says it all

Life and Choice. While I'm probably anti-abortion, I am certainly pro-choice. Make abortion illegal again and it'll drive another spike into the class war. Illegal abortion means that wealthy women will be able to get clean safe expensive abortions while poor women will be forced into the old back alley coat-hanger cliche'. Just another way of keeping the working class down. And making sure there is plenty of cannon fodder.

[ieoeja]

30. Why should you care what we think?

What does my belief that there is absolutely nothing wrong with abortion have to do with the core issue: should it be illegal? You shouldn't be voting on someone's beliefs, you should be voting for policies.

Using your logic you shouldn't vote for a Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or Protestant either. Such candidates may share your support/opposition to the exact same legislation, but their beliefs are different.

Presumably you would not have any problem voting for one of the above. Apply the same reasoning to your abortion dilemma, and you should have no qualms.

[CitySky]

31. Christian & Progressive

Hi Dave -

Thanks for your sincere question.

I am a Christian. I practice a pretty "conservative" lifestyle in terms of my personal affairs. I believe that abortion is wrong, along with lots of other things that also happen to be legal.

I am also a lifelong Democrat, very progressive in my politics.

For me, the distinction is mainly between what our government ALLOWS people to do and what it ACTIVELY PERPETRATES. I appreciate that I live in a country with great freedoms -- it is a blessing to be able to travel, to speak, to worship as I please. I would defend those same rights for those whose views do not coincide with mine, for who's to say which group the government might favor tomorrow, or the next day?

I do not appreciate when my government oppresses people, kills people, or presses the agenda of the rich at the expense of the powerless. (The Bible has a LOT more to say about money than it does about sex, btw.)

If I were Queen of The World (as my mother used to say), what would I do about the abortion issue? I'd try to bring people together on reducing unwanted pregnancies: opportunity, education. Respect. I wouldn't go trying to make illegal something that many Americans still regard as a fundamental freedom.

Thanks again for your Q.

-Peace!