With GOP theater having concluded, Democratic theater is now in full swing. The first part of the convention, the part not widely aired, was a lot of shouting, and a lot of the politics of gender and race. Bitter was getting quite irritated with the gender politics, which she said weren’t even laid on as thick at the women’s college she went to. The first part was pure base rallying, focusing on Obamacare and, if you’re a woman, about how the evil Republicans want to control, or otherwise do bad things to your girly parts. They will defend your vagina!
The entire tone of the convention changed for the prime time speeches. I thought Michelle Obama was every bit Ann Romney’s equal, when it came to making the case for her husband as a person. Both Michelle and Ann are pretty good at delivering political speeches, which makes one surmise if they don’t have some political talent on their own. I suppose you have to in order to be First Lady these days. Speaking of politics, when you’re getting up and giving a speech during a prime time speaking slot at a Party national convention, you don’t get to say “I’m really not a political person.” It doesn’t pass the smell test.
That whole “choice” issue irritates me. With the exception of legitimate reasons for abortion (IMHO; rape, incest and the life of the mother), it has nothing to do with choice by that point. It is all about dodging the consequences of what they have already CHOSEN to do.
I’m not really a fan of how the debate is framed either. I’m neither anti-life nor anti-choice. Who isn’t pro-life and pro-choice? That dodges, the fundamental issue, which is where someone’s legal status as a human being should begin. If you believe it begins at conception, there’s nothing I can come up with to prove you wrong, because it’s just not that kind of issue.
I don’t happen to believe it begins and conception, because I tend to think viewing a collection of cells as legally human is a bit absurd. But how much brain development does it take? The problem with a lot of pro-choice folks is they think the answers there are early, or just plain apparent. I tend to agree with them on very early pregnancies, but the farther it goes, the less clear the answers are.
I agree completely that the farther it goes, the less clear it is. I believe that because it is ambiguous, because we do not know the answer, we must err on the side of caution. Hence, the only safe answer is that we should treat it as if life begins at conception.
Does that make a miscarriage manslaughter? The opportunities for governmental intrusion into a pregnant woman’s life and lifestyle if you go down that path make me very scared; and it’ll come from both sides of the nanny state.
No, but I understand your concern. I am torn between my dislike of government intrusion in virtually any form and my belief that abortion is wrong in most cases. The first thing I would like to see is a law that prevents the government from funding abortions (I do not want my tax dollars paying for them) and anything else regarding abortion. After that, while I do not like abortion, I would just keep the government out of it and let society fight it out. That would not satisfy my belief about abortion, but it would be the right thing to do for our country. Hurts having to say that, though.
The current law is that federal money may not be spent on abortions. The fight is on about whether organizations that perform abortions may receive federal money to perform non-abortion functions, I understand.
I think ambiguity needs to be resolved in the mother’s favor, because she has a right to her person as well. Is there a point where the right of the unborn trumps the mother’s right? I’m open to the argument that yes, there is a point where that happens. But it’s hard for me to see why a collection of cells trumps the right of an actual person, which is an accurate description of a human embryo in the first eight weeks of a pregnancy.
There is no way to really tell. I will have to disagree with you here. I think ambiguity needs to be resolved in the fetus’ favor. When the choice is not clear, then IMHO the only ethical and moral choice must be life.
Well, right there you have why I don’t like the abortion debate. Who am I to say you’re wrong? It’s just my opinion. I have no facts or logic to back it up. It’s just a matter of how I balance what I view as the interests at play.
First Lady has been a political job since at least the FDR administration, and politician’s wife has been a political position in general since the Roman Empire (there’s a famous line about Caesar’s Wife)