Raznor's Rants

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Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Republicans and Abortion
Posted by Raznor

Scott Lemieux has a great post on abortion that is worth a read. I'm struck, though, by this excerpt from the GOP platform (emphasis Lemieux's):

We must keep our pledge to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence. That is why we say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make it clear that the 14th Amendment's protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions. We oppose using public revenues for abortion and will not fund organizations which advocate it. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life.

We oppose abortion, but our pro-life agenda does not include punitive action against women who have an abortion. We salute those who provide alternatives to abortion and offer adoption services, and we commend Congressional Republicans for expanding assistance to adopting families and for removing racial barriers to adoption.


Look at that. As Lemieux points out, if the unborn are given equal protection under the law, then by definition, abortion is first-degree murder. Yet they are not for punishing women who have abortions. What kind of bullshit is that?

I'm reminded of a video I saw online a couple months ago (can't seem to find the link, maybe I'll post it later) where people picketing an abortion clinic were asked whether they thought abortion should be legal and then what they thought should happen to women who had illegal abortions. The answer to the first question was a resounding "Hell, yes!!" and to the second question a resounding "err -umm - like a punishment? Errrrr, well, I dunno. nothing?"

It's a childish position. Their reasoning is "abortion is icky, therefore it oughta be illegal". But they have no thoughts whatsoever as to the consequences of making it illegal. And unfortunately, thanks to this complete lack of responsibility, they are mindlessly getting closer to achieving their goals.

The new Republican slogan "we do what we want and to hell with the repercussions". It would be fine if they weren't running the government.

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