Quote:
Originally Posted by detbuch
Women's rights are mostly about equal rights, which repubs do agree with. Specific "rights" which apply to her gender can be tricky. Other than abortion and birth control I can't think of any off-hand though there must be some. There are many things that women don't have a legal "right" to do which also apply to men. Jim mentioned one. Prostitution, in most states, is another. Then there are the everyday laws like murder, child molestation (doesn't happen only in Catholic churches), robbery, mayhem, suicide bombing (for those who Sea Dangles sees as talibans), spousal abuse, etc. There seems to be an equal support for these restrictions by Dems and Repubs.
The only real sticking point difference is abortion. Firstly, in the proposition of when life begins. Secondly, when is it proper to extinguish that life. Thirdly, in the perception of whose body and whose rights are in question. And finally, which level of government has jurisdiction.
The first seems to have no definitive answer. Obviously, killing innocent human beings, is a form of murder. I don't think that is in dispute. But scientific advancement has displaced nature in the ease of making a "choice." The so-called viability argument is specious. Saying that a fetus can be destroyed until the point that it becomes "viable" can lead to an extention of that point to years beyond birth. Newborn babies are not "viable" without support. Neither are toddlers nor most pre-teens. Society demands that they be cared for and nurtured until later in life.
The second, when it is proper to kill, is highly contentious. Partial birth abortion is heinous in the eyes of most. The slaughter of babies who survive abortion is also, though apparently less so for some.
The third contention, "whose body"
has more facets than the surface appearance. Obviously, the sperm that fertilizes the egg does not belong to the woman. And the fetus is not actually a part of the woman's body. It is a distinct being with its own genetic code. All three beings, the woman, the man, and the fetus, are part of the same process and each, presumably, have equal rights. That the courts have given the totality of "rights" to the woman is arbitrary. And treating the fetus as if it were some alien inhabiting the woman's body because it is a distinct being and therefor susceptible to her choice of removal would have validity if pregnancy were considered a disease. History and nature have spoken differently on that matter.
In extreme cases where the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother, that is akin, in some degree, to a disease, and a choice must obviously be made. In the case of conception by rape, philosophic argument may trump life. Above my pay grade stuff. The vast majority of abortions are of neither category.
And last, constitutionally, the jurisdiction should be state not federal. That is what most repubs believe and the most relevant legal difference between the two parties.
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thank you..........and you didn't even have to mention GOD...go figure????
this issue will always be a hammer for democrats at election time, it's divisive and it's an intellectually lazy argument for them and it(the argument) extends into and among republicans....
while it should not be an argument at the federal level(the left has made it a federal issue) and should not impact the direction of elections(but always does) it has become an entitlement per se on the list of entitlements that will be taken away if you pull the wrong lever....republicans will always be asked and as we saw with the candidates this go around and democrats will always be assumed to be on the correct side of the issue....democrats will pounce while being allowed to skate on the issue themselves, it's interesting how many democrats were pro-life shortly before having national aspirations....it truly is a litmus issue among those of open mindedness...interesting how little dissension there is on issues within the democrat party
it offers an opportunity to bash the religious although I'd argue that for many pro-life types, the stance has less to do with religion and more to do with the thoughtful points that Detbuch made above....if the "pro-chioce" crowd were actually consistent the woman's right to choose would not end at birth or be some arbitrary point before or shortly after, as Detbuch aptly pointed out........
polls show that nearly half of Americans still find it morally wrong...but most I think have been cowed by the venom that you have to endure, as shown here, the rolling of eyes in response for simply having a pro-life position...many are sick of hearing about the issue because in their mind it doesn't affect them directly
we've become really good a rights and entitlements but we appear to be forgetting many of the responsibilities that go along with those rights, we look to the federal government more and more for new and guaranteed rights while handing over the responsibility for our lives to them which ultimately burdens our neighbors...
interesting that many in the pro-choice camp bristle at the idea of the federal government or society through the federal government dictating what a woman might or might not do with what may or may not be a "part" of her body as they continue the march of the federal government into every aspect of your our lives
"Even putting aside the constitutional questions here, the Court’s record as a policymaker is dismal. If forced to be charitable, one might say that the rulings in these cases were prompted by a desire to reduce the incidence of unplanned pregnancy and abortion. But what has happened? In the early 1960s, only 6 percent of American children were born outside marriage. Today, the figure is above 40 percent, and social-science research overwhelmingly shows the disadvantages that such children face growing up and thereafter. Other research shows the drain on public resources arising from the normalization of out-of-wedlock child-bearing. Finally, and contrary to the prediction in Roe and its companion case Doe v. Bolton, abortion has not been an infrequent occurrence, but a widely used form of birth control — and this despite the much greater availability of contraceptives in the last 40 years."
Judicial Usurpation: Then and Now - National Review Online
and more specifically...53% of births to women 30 and under are out-of-wedlock....apparently all of the abortion, education, birth control and on and on have not worked as intended or claimed...I guess the dems would claimed it hasn't worked because the programs have been so horrible underfunded...of course, it's worked in the sense that it's created a culture of loyal democrat voters
The Times reporters Jason DeParle and Sabrina Tavernise spoke to dozens of people in Lorain, Ohio, a blue-collar town west of Cleveland where the decline of the married two-parent family has been especially steep, with 63 percent of births to women under 30 occurring outside of marriage.
The young parents of Lorain said their reliance on the government safety net encouraged them to stay single and that they didn’t trust their youthful peers to be reliable partners.
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2...he-new-normal/