But there is a question remaining: knowing these things, why would someone willingly advocate this act? In pondering a different subject tonight, this line of thought came to me. It actually does tie in with the main thought I'm saving for later, which is why I want to put this out here first.
Children are a huge responsibility, and it's not always planned. My wife and I were faced with that. Twins. BAM! And after a few moments of "Holy shit, we can't afford this... what are we going to do?" we sucked it up and started re-arranging our lives.
But in that moment of shock, it's easy to understand why a pregnant woman might seek an abortion. She's suddenly faced with that huge responsibility. It may not be one she expected. She may have guarded against it with contraceptives. It may have been forced upon her. She may be scared, regretful, ashamed, and furious, possibly all at once. The father, if he's even moderately responsible, may dread that same responsibility. Together they may fear the future and their perceived loss of freedom. Or, they may actually believe that the new life isn't yet a distinct human being; that it's a part of the mother alone that can be discarded like fingernails. I think that last possibility is a shame because it means they haven't really thought it through, as I discuss more fully in the previous post.
For whatever reason, though, their motivations are understandable, though their conclusions are not mine. But whatever the motivation, the end result is the termination of a human life. When that life is an innocent, clean slate, that's nothing to cheer about. The decision should be difficult. It should be serious.
For the politicians, a pro-Abortion stance is a lot tougher to justify than it is for the parents. A lawmaker is not caught in the immediacy of the moment, and should be able to weigh such issues more dispassionately and fairly. They have a broad constituency to think of... though not all of them voted for him, the politician is nonetheless charged with looking out for their interests once he takes office. Most politicians at a minimum pay lip-service to strict limits on the practice.
But those advocates of partial-birth abortions... any trimester, any means, give-me-an-excuse, do-what-you-want, "it's your body" politicians... how to explain that?
Here's how: babies don't vote.
That's not being cynical; it's realistic. a fetus can't vote, but the reluctant mother and father can. Furthermore, they can vote right now, this election. That baby, no matter his future political leanings, can't vote for another eighteen years at the earliest, and there are a lot of elections between now and then. Protecting the life of that infant has no immediate political payback. Even saving his life is no guarantee that he'll support you in the future. His parents are already considering killing him, so you're not going to get their support by siding with the baby.
Defending the child is something you must do for altruistic reasons, or you wouldn't do it at all. But siding with abortionists is something that has immediate political payback. When you are deep into the "team" mindset... that "us vs. them" political game where "winning" is the object, and power is the prize, pandering to pro-abortionists is a solid strategy. And if you're playing to win, you justify buying those votes however you can, even at the cost of a life.
Then you swear to Jeebus that you're defending the rights of individuals, though solid, consistent adherence to logic sweeps that poor excuse aside. But you're in luck, because a poor excuse is all you need to cater to their fears, regrets, and anger. To get their votes. To gain power.
Go team.
Those Leftists who would use the "right to choose" as an excuse to forcibly deprive another human being of Life are the glaring hypocrites in the room. They invoke "it's my body" only when convenient to their pre-packaged agenda, discarding the concept entirely when inconvenient. It's provably not your DNA... not your body. If you "follow the science" and you allow that this is another person, then as Barack Obama noted, that person would have rights. So it's very important to the ideology to maintain the conceit that it's "your body". But when the topic really is your body and you don't mind being fat or it's your body and you want to determine for yourself how to maintain it, then suddenly it's the world's business and you don't get much say in it. Hypocrisy? I wasn't pro-Life until I stopped being a hypocrite.
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