I don't excuse abortion; I'm horrified by it. I understand your perspective, SJ, and the passion you feel about the millions of potential lives lost to abortion.
But I believe the focus of the pro-life movement should be on saving lives - using persuasion and providing concrete help to women in crisis - rather than the vain task of stuffing genies back in bottles.
"potential lives"? Genies in bottles? How crass a term for human life. Perhaps some meatbag like yourself prefers to be referred to as five bucks worth of salts and water in a skin sack, but short of posting images of shredded babies, perhaps I can't bring home to you that which you so casually dismiss. These were people, alive, not mythical (Islamic mythical, no less, the
djinn) creatures, whose murder was very real, and ongoing. Of course, dehumanizing those to be slaughtered is the method of mass murderers throughout history, so you have adopted a time honored technique.
The choice right has existed as part of the Constitution for over forty years now.
It may be case law, but if you can't quote Article, section, or Amendment, it is not part of The Constitution. It is a badly crafted judicial decision, a decree, and the antithesis of an unalienable right. No healthy creature in nature would advocate the slaughter of its own offspring.
Not as long as the gun right,
The "gun right", the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, has been an understood facet of self-defense for far longer than our Constitution exists, and that Amendment does not use the word "firearm" of "gun" anywhere, leaving the choice of martial device to the individual. Despite the absence of limitations on that Right, (in fact, codified, a right which "shall not be infringed"), I would wager you and many others of your ilk would gladly place restrictions on the type and effectiveness of the arms to be kept and borne by any individual. With rare exception, all but the most staunch advocates of the RKBA accept limitations to the RKBA.
...to be sure, but long enough - there isn't a woman of child-bearing age who hasn't always had the right to determine for herself whether to procreate.
Correct, and with the exception of acts of force and violence, it has always been thus. There are a host of means by which a woman can avoid procreation, the most effective is abstinence, which faithfully practiced has had only one well documented exception in effect.
Understanding that any other method carries a risk of failure, there have been condoms for centuries, other blocking devices, spermacides, intrauterine devices, tubal ligation/vasectomy, and for at least as long as
Roe other means of tricking the body into not accepting the implantation of a fertilized egg, including, but not limited to "the Pill".
All these methods involve no fetal development, no baby to kill, and all have been available, some for a pittance in vending machines, corner drugstores, or in the big-box stores, handed out at free clinics, made available to people interested in not procreating.
Like it or not, women have been liberated from the patriarchy.
Patriarchy? Where have you been?
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Real women know this and ever have, and have had no illusions about their power. Their Fathers, husbands, brothers and sons have gone forth on their behalf to keep it so.
The genie's long gone.
Is it? Did the little spirit that grants wishes pop out of the bottle? (An interesting metaphor for the birth of a baby, formerly in utero)
Rub it (the lamp) gently, lovingly, hold it, when it comes out tell it your dreams and they will perhaps come true? Such is a child.
Beats the heck out of sticking a fancy coathanger in the bottle and playing mixmaster with the 'genie', which might not get you any wishes granted at all.
Moral matters such as this - which are inherently religious in nature - are best addressed by persuasion rather than coercion. The state is charged with respecting our natural rights to liberty and self-determination, not usurping them.
The State is charged with protecting those rights and keeping the exercise of rights by one (especially one more powerful) from infringing on the rights of another (especially one less powerful).
What of the rights of those not yet born (but in utero) to liberty and self-determination?
They are in a situation NOT of their own choosing (Who wouldn't rather be born into a family where they would be a welcome addition and treated as a blessing, rather than have those who carry you literally out for your blood from before your birth).
They have committed no crime, stolen nothing from anyone. By accident or design, their presence is one commanded by the actions of others. Yet they get no 'choice' about living, nor opportunity to choose.
Liberty includes the right to make bad choices, even immoral choices.
I'll take issue with that. Liberty does not include any right to infringe on the rights of others. It does not include the right to make 'bad moral choices' like stealing, lying, or murder, to name just a few. Nor does Liberty include the 'right' to be free of the consequences of those bad choices--especially at the suffering or death of those who had no choice, who are indeed innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever.
What religion permits the sacrifice of your offspring for absolution from your 'sins'?
The task is to appeal to conscience in favor of religious values, not appeal to the state to compel adherence to religious values.
But wait. We have laws against murder, against adultery, against stealing, against perjury, and these laws all reflect religious values (numbers 6,7,8,9 of the Ten Commandments, respectively) Should we repeal those?
Your argument doesn't stand.
The good news is, persuasion (and education) works. Abortion is now at its lowest levels since before Roe v. Wade.
How do you measure the levels before it was decreed legal? Sad that there was a 'murder bubble' at all.
