Anti-abortion people most often seem to have a moral objection to abortions based on their religious convictions. They are a minority but that doesn't stop them from wanting to force the end of abortions by any means available. Why wouldn't everyone agree? Should I question their convictions?
I could ask why these moralist don't quit having surgery or using medicine to cure their ills and start using their convictions to cure their ills as does another minority religion, Christian Science. Is it because unlike themselves, Christian Scientist don't really have a correct understanding of what God wants? Is it even just that He wants us to quit killing unborn babies? I guess so, because war, capital punishment, gun totting self defense all seem to be getting a thumbs up from from many of these same anti-abortionist's God? Now I could discuss those issues, but maybe abortion is a big enough topic to limit my discussion here.
I personally deplore the idea of abortion. While working as a volunteer board member for The Huntington Beach Community Clinic, I developed the idea of "No Choice". Give boys/girls/men/women access to birth control, so that an unwanted pregnancy could be avoided in most cases. No Baby -- No Choice necessary. However, in case of a pregnancy for any reason, I don't think I have the right to object to the termination of that pregnancy if that be the decision of the mother.
I don't give the father equal rights in deciding whether or not to terminate a pregnancy, because nature didn't give the father responsibilities equal to the mother's in carrying the baby to term. In fact God even fell short with not requiring care for a newborn beyond birth. Had He, there wouldn't be any trash can babies or need for "No Fault ... Surrender Baby Laws" .
As a teacher and world traveler, I've seen and known unwanted children. Would the world have been a better place had those children been aborted? I don't know. Could the world have been a better place for those children? -- absolutely!
So until the anti-abortion folk are ready to accept responsibility for making the world the best place possible for all children, I'm not going to respect their moral objection anymore than I'd respect a Christian Scientist's intolerance for cough medicine.
If it were not for Anti-Abortion crowd painting a wide swath of objections to anything however loosely associated with abortions, their existence could easily be ignored. But when an organization with as much positive impact on society as Planned Parenthood is vilified, because they legally provide abortion services and counseling to less than 3% of their clients, I feel a need to enter the conversation.
In the late 1980s, the Huntington Beach Community Clinic lost its state funding not because it performed abortions (it didn't), but because it 'might' refer a woman to Planned Parenthood if she expressed an interest in abortion services or counseling. The Clinic survived and that funding was reinstated when that era's anti-abortion governor was voted out of office.
But that blanket incrimination of any and all associations with anything pro-abortion has continued to ebb and flow with the political climate. Although the GW Bushes administration can be proud of their contributions to combating Aides in Africa, they should be ashamed for excluding some of the most capable health care providers in Africa from administering the programs just because they legally provided abortion services and counseling in their home countries. Those restrictions were lifted shortly after Obama's inauguration.
It's regretful that Abortion has become such a political issue when rightfully it should just be a personal or moral (albeit Religious) issue. But issues make good bedfellows, and the GOP right have fostered the Religious right until they have become equal voices in the abortion opposition movement. Federal laws like the Hyde amendment, have restricted since the early 1980s, any federal funds being used directly to pay for abortions except under the most strict of circumstances: mothers health, rape, etc. Still that's not enough to silence the outrage. There's still guilt by association.
Planned Parenthood gets one third of its funding from government grants and service payments. The other two thirds comes from private donations and service fees. But that's not going to deter the guilt by association taint. The Government gives money to Planned Parenthood (remember only 1/3 of PPs operating revenue) . Planned Parenthood provides abortion services (remember only 3% of PPs contacts were for abortion related). Therefore the Government pays for abortions!
"My/Your taxes pay for Abortions! Those guys are using my tax dollars to pay for abortions!" I bet you can guess who those Guys are, and I'll give you odds which political party will rescue Me/You from this travesty.
That is guilt by association. A political and moralistic weapon used here against abortion, but it's illogical at best. Then what's the solution?
Pass a law against abortion.
But the Supreme Court might strike that law down as unconstitutional.
Then pack the court with anti-abortion justices.
But that's been tried and failed since Roe v Wade, 1973.
Then propose and pass an Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Okay!
Okay, do it! But until you're done, please just shut the fuck up!
