There are many things that are important to Conservatives and Republicans that are also important to me. First and Second Amendment issues are prime examples. Freedom to speak, to protest (not riot), to think your own thoughts, to live free, these are fundamentally American things. Other countries, if they have these things at all, have done so because we did it first. Firearms and arms in general, I might be more Right than some of you, because I firmly and 100% believe that “…shall not be infringed…” is the be-all and end-all. I am a “small government” kind of gal, and would love to see the swamp drained. I think that government has the anti-Midas touch – everything it touches turns to shit. Government should be interfering only when absolutely necessary, especially at the Federal level. It should not be possible for someone to be a “career politician.” EVER.
And then there are other issues, ones which are not Constitutional but are near and dear to my heart. I believe that a person’s body should be inviolate, and that includes during pregnancy. I believe birth control should be inexpensive (already possible) or maybe free at point of use, and easy to get ahold of. I think marriage, from the government’s perspective, should simply be a listing of who did what, when, for the purposes of census taking and whatever Federal and State level benefits people get for being married. I think if five people want to get together and form a family, that’s fine. I think gay people are “just people” and should have exactly the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else (and not more, btw). I think black people are “just people” and should have exactly the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else (and not more, btw). I believe that people should be able to get (very basic) healthcare that is free at point of service (largely because it saves money at the community and county level, overall). I believe that religion, and freedom of AND FROM it, are between a person and their gods, and there should be no government level (including schools) statements that are inherently religious.
There’s a lot going on here, and I labeled this article “fears” for a reason. Here are some of the concerns I have, and why I have them. Some echo the concerns that those on the Left have. Take what you will from it.
When it comes to the topic of pregnancy, and all the stuff that is attached to it, I have gotten more and more Left of center as time goes on. I grew up in Canada, and I considered the abortion laws there to be just and right. A woman could have an abortion, no questions asked, up to 12 weeks. After that, it was only to save the life of the mother (which included mental health, but only to a point). A woman who went in for an abortion for the first time was offered counselling. If a woman went in a second time for an abortion, she HAD to have counselling. If she went in a third time for an abortion, there was a lot more that had to be done, including counselling, talking to family law enforcement about what was causing her to go in for abortions, etc. And birth control was free at point of service, for the most part. Yes, you could pay to get specialty brands, but the most popular versions of birth control were available from your doctor, often for free, especially if you were low income. It was the view of the Canadian government that it was easier to prevent pregnancy than to deal with the outcome of it (be that birth OR abortion).
I still believe this is the most rational way to deal with abortion. While I know from personal experience that there are a handful of women who use abortion as a form of birth control, I also know that those numbers are extremely low on a per capita basis. They are the exceptions and not the rule, and therefore are zebras and not horses. When we’re hunting horses, stop looking for zebras. Before the 12 week mark, that fetus is just a clump of cells that might become a human being. Between 10% and 20% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, though we know the number is likely considerably higher than that because many women don’t even know they’re pregnant when they miscarry (Mayo Clinic). Using something like Plan B doesn’t allow a clump of cells to implant, and therefore the body flushes it out, just as it does during miscarriage. All this stuff, especially Plan B (which is only good in the first ten weeks), is important to keep having available.
The Left told me that the minute Roe vs Wade was toppled, the Right was going to go after my birth control. I was told by the Right that no, that was not going to happen. But it IS happening. While I could see the logic behind not wanting Plan B (often labeled “emergency contraception,” it is not… it is an abortifacient and I won’t hide behind a deceptive definition), but IUDs are one of the most useful tools for preventing pregnancy and for helping women with serious medical conditions to do with menstruation and such. There are States working on banning both, and I just don’t get it (Washington Post). Equating birth control (pills, IUD, shots, etc) with abortion is a losing option. The BEST way to prevent abortions is to prevent pregnancy. Considering the sheer number of women in America who have used or currently use birth control, this is such a ridiculous thing to even speak about banning.
When it comes to abortion itself, we have problems. There’s no real definition of “life” and some of the ones floated around by both Left AND Right are (imo) ridiculous. Life doesn’t begin at conception, but neither does it begin as an infant slides out of the womb. The “magic moment” is somewhere in between, and the most rational people I know agree that it comes somewhere around the 12 week mark. At that point, you have a human being who may possibly have a true right to live, a right that belongs to itself and not just the mother. By the 18th week, we’re getting into “it’s not a fetus, it’s a baby” territory, and it’s close to surviving without the mother, and terminating is not moral or right, and may be illegal (though we know that is in question right now). But to state it without any mitigating language, if a woman’s life is at stake, her life is more important than that of the fetus or infant, yes, right up to birth. A potential person is not more important than a person already walking and talking and giving back to society.
But there’s this point where some people seem to be getting stuck. “To save the life of the woman…” is a phrase we hear a lot right now, especially in southern States. There are several cases working through the judicial system right now, of women who had non-viable pregnancies, or fetuses that died in the womb and were no longer alive at all… and who were forced to carry that child until their life was “in danger” because the state of the fetus did not actively put the woman into danger for her life. It might destroy her womb, and in at least a handful of cases, it’s destroyed the woman’s ability to have children going forward because of sepsis that happened due to carrying a dead infant inside her body. But until she actually *has* sepsis, she’s not in danger, and so they’re not doing D&Cs… because a D&C (dilation and cuterage) is an abortion. And abortion is outlawed.
Is this a doctor being a shit, and refusing to do a necessary surgery for a made up concern over being arrested? Maybe in one or two cases, but we’ve seen State attorneys actually threaten to do so (The Guardian). In 2A cases, we refer to this kind of threat as having a “chilling effect” on people who would go against it. In other words, people don’t speak up (or in this case, do a medically necessary abortion) because of the fear that they will be prosecuted and/or charged and arrested. There is ample evidence that, at least right now in southern States, this is indeed happening. Doctors have reason to be concerned. So do women.
Moving along, let’s talk about marriage. People got all excited over “gay marriage” and I just didn’t understand it. I’m all for anyone getting married to any other person OR PERSONS provided everyone involved has knowingly consented and is an adult. There is no such thing as “gay” marriage. It’s just marriage. And the government shouldn’t have anything to do with it.
Marriage is a religious and/or social construct, and the government’s only concern over who is or is not married, in any combination whatsoever, is to do with legal issues pertaining directly to the marriage (children, items owned together, etc.). Therefore, the only reason the government should touch marriage is to make a note of it. Want people to pay their $50 to do so? Sure, I can handle that. But making everyone get special licenses and only some people can perform marriages, and some people can’t marry etc etc? No, that’s not cool. There is no Constitutional right to marriage (Jurist). Therefore, it’s not a Constitutional or Federal thing, therefore if the government wants a piece of it, it should be relegated to making notes about who’s married and created offspring with whom, for the purposes of taxation and census, and nothing else. There should not be a “marriage license” at any level. You want to get married, to find someone to marry you, be that a minister, a Justice of the Peace, or a friend. It’s between the people getting married, and their social peers, and their God (should they believe in one). Get rid of marriage licenses and government interference in something that is essentially religious, and all the problems for marriages go away.
That leads me to the “people are people” statement. Gay? Still a person. Black? Still a person. White? Still a person. Trans? Still a person. But I’m Right enough to say, people being people ends at my nose – you can be gay, trans, whatever… but you can’t determine what I am, or what I do. I’m pansexual… and I’m guessing most people didn’t know that until I said it. Why? Because I don’t go shouting it from the rooftops… not because I’m ashamed of it (I’m not), but because there’s no need. I’m a PERSON first. Unless you’re trying to have sex with me, my sexual orientation has nothing to do with anything. So gay parents? Fine.
I do draw the line at certain things, *personally*. I stand with the (very large and rapidly growing) group of alphabet soup people (LGBT+) who say that it’s gone too far on many fronts. It’s fine to be gay, to be trans, to be whatever. It’s not fine to be pushing those things in a public area. I don’t mean “just existing” though. I specifically mean doing things to get attention. So gay couple or trans person getting coffee at Starbucks and just going about their business (y’know, like people) is fine. Gay couple or trans person screaming at someone and being a Karen because they weren’t recognized as the sparkle unicorn princess they are, NOT fine.
I have trans friends who transitioned 20+ years ago. One was a prominent person in the early Microsoft days, and when he became she, she was fired. She had to go back to school and take all her courses again (even though she WROTE some of them) because she needed her degrees in her new name and gender, and people truly persecuted her. I felt horrible because she really just wanted to be a woman, quietly living her life, doing her passion of programming. She got there, but it took her three times as long, just because she worked to change. And she never freaked out over misgendering (though it would have been difficult to do so, because she was so very much a feminine woman despite her inability to have children). She spent the better part of a decade working to BE a woman at all levels. And she was, and is. This is so very, VERY different from the men in beards going into women’s spaces and being dipshits.
I am afraid of going back to what she had to go through… while being appalled at where we currently are. Though as I said, there are a lot of people fighting back against the ridiculousness. I cannot tell you how many friends I have, friends who are WAY Left on the spectrum, who were horrified at the apparent shenanigans at the San Francisco Pride parade. I guess there was a ton of nudity, and everyone who wasn’t intimately involved is just going nuts over it, denouncing it.
I am terrified over the religious stuff going on right now. The Louisiana legislation requiring every classroom to post a copy of the Christian Ten Commandments (AP) is … I don’t even have words. It truly frightens me. I have always said, if you wouldn’t want Wiccan laws or Muslim laws or Buddhist laws put up in a classroom, then you shouldn’t be wanting Christian ones either. That’s my acid test – would I want this if it were in these five OTHER religions? If the answer is no, then it must be no for the religion you’re talking about. I understand the legal flimflam that the governor stated when putting it into law, but it’s wrong. What’s even more wrong is the version that’s been mandated, which is the specific version from the King James Bible (don’t even get me started on the inaccuracies in the KJ). The ORIGINAL version, from the Torah, can’t be posted (in English or Hebrew, I might add). It MUST be the exact words, as stated in their law. How did this happen?
If you want to ban a teacher hanging a pride flag in a classroom, then you cannot say that it’s fine to post the tenets of a religion that not everyone is a part of. The cognitive dissonance is so incredibly plain to me. Having a teacher talk about the historical value of *knowing* the Christian Commandments is one thing, if done in a manner respectful of the religious views of the country as a whole… but posting up that specific version, in a large poster, mandating it, and putting it in a place where children look at it every single day… In what way is that not indoctrination?
If it were just one thing, I might be able to get past it. But there are just so many moving parts to this, and it adds up to being terrifying. I want to live free, but I see walls closing around me, and it’s frightening. When I pile them up, they become a very solid reason for me to shy away from the Right. Yes, there are many reasons I like the Right, but these things and a few others…
I talk about Robert A. Heinlein as being a prophet or a fortune teller. He has been right about SO many things, from inventions to political stuff to religion. If we’re to follow his prophetic visions for the future, our next step is a time called “the Troubles,” when religion takes over and freedom is quashed. In the past ten years, I have seen the Troubles coming to life around me, and so many of Heinlein’s writings being proven to be true. I don’t like it. I fear it.
Immigration is another biggie for me. While I’m not so much interested in having floods of people coming in from poorer countries, I do think that we could figure out ways in which we could let people in more effectively, and in ways that were good for the country. America was built on immigrants, and is a country of immigrants, and I’d like to see that as a PROUD heritage again instead of a swear word. We need to go back to looking at what the country needs, in any given year, and making those people the priority. So right now, that’d be mental health counselors (who would probably need to come from countries like Britain and Canada, as poorer countries won’t understand our systems), truck drivers, anything in the health industry (nurses, aides, doctors, dentists, etc), ultrasound techs, carpenters and construction people, teachers, and of course the “trifecta” of plumbing, HVAC, and electrical. There are others, but those are ones that we could probably start to fill with newcomers to our country. Once we have these skilled immigrants here, we need to get them host families and teach them how to be American. We used to do that, and then the Dems stopped it, and I don’t even want to go into that part because it makes me so mad. But yes, teach people how to THINK American. Celebrate our Little Italy and our Chinatown.
Let’s get that temporary visa problem fixed, too. We used to have cheap tomatoes and cherries and oranges, because laborers came in from Mexico and did the picking during the season. They’d be here for a few months, do the work that Americans are too fat or too good to do, and then go home with our fat American paychecks in their pockets. They’d live well until the following picking season. Those people had reason to be here, and they had reason to leave, too. When we did away with the migrant worker programs, we made our own damn food more expensive.
Go ahead and slap a ban on people from countries that have actively attempted to blow us up. I might argue it, but probably not hard. Let’s get back to working on making this the greatest country in the world, where anyone who works hard can actually get somewhere.
So that’s a bit of where I’m at. There’s more, so much more, but I have life to live today. Sigh…
Comments
17 responses to “Fears”
good read luv. you summed it up in one sentence tho- the government shouldn’t be involved in any of it…
this Country was founded on individual responsibility.. We the People need to get back to it.
Curby,
I couldn’t agree more. Individual responsibility has gotten lost somewhere.
I do think it’s morally right to take care of those who aren’t capable of being responsible (those with certain types of disabilities, for instance), but even there I’m not sure what the LEGAL response should be. On the other hand, it used to be we just concerned ourselves with taking care of parentless children and adults with mental or physical problems that were so severe that there was no way for them to do it themselves. That’s a good thing imo. But the line for “disabled” has become so long, and seems to include people who just don’t want to work… I dunno.
personal responsibility has gotten lost also
“I do think it’s morally right to take care of those who aren’t capable of being responsible (those with certain types of disabilities, for instance),”
Morally right is one thing.
Being forced to by the government is something totally different.
The more my local Assembly increases taxes on me to support whatever collectivist feel good claptrap they are pushing, the less I donate to the charities that do the work I support.
Seriously, there would be a lot less 3rd/4th generation welfare recipients if the average taxpayer realized how much of their working life was being wasted by politicians that want to look good.
CBM said, “Morally right is one thing. Being forced to by the government is something totally different.”
Which is exactly why I differentiated between the moral thing and the legal thing.
When it comes to things that touch on “socialism,” I think it’s best left to the singular community level. Welfare isn’t a bad thing; it’s a bad thing when welfare is abused. Same with everything else offered free at point of service.
Let’s take the supporting of those who are temporarily out of work for a moment. I rather like the LDS model of caring for that. They have their own food pantry, and if you’re out of work or underpaid for whatever reason, you can apply to take food from the food pantry. They, as a community, choose to support those with problems. And they also mandate that those who use it get counselling, and help finding work, and support on spiritual, emotional, and religious levels. That’s the “cost” of their free pantry. They police their own, and because it is all dealt with at a local level, the people who are policing it actually KNOW the people receiving it.
Therein lies the rub. At the local level, I give lots. I support our food pantry. I support our schools. I support our library. I support the Fort. Why? Because I know those people, and I know where that money is going. At the local level, all these things work just fine, because you are donating to your own community. When it reaches the State and then Federal level, you have a built in layer of bureaucracy that shields those in power from those receiving help, and that means they DON’T know who really needs it and who’s scamming. It breaks down.
“Socialism” works at a community level. Dictatorships work fine at a family and very small community level. Our family is rather socialist, in that we all put our money into a pot, and the bills get paid out of that, and we all take an “allowance” for fun money. That’s the system we’ve agreed works for us. We don’t impress it on others, and we don’t look down on others who do it differently. At our tiny level, it works. It would NOT work at our town level. It sure as hell wouldn’t work at the State or Federal level, nor should we think about doing that.
Having a social safety net overseen by State government, and enacted by each county or town, that should work. Keep the Feds out of it. But maybe we go back to those safety nets being put together by even smaller groups. It used to be churches, though of course not everyone belongs to a church now. But there are certainly small groups in our neighborhood that we support, because we know THEY support the right people. And that’s good. Moral and legal together. 🙂
And yes, people need to learn to work hard. Parents seem to want their kids to have an easy time of it. I never think that. Kids should have a damned hard time of it, have to slog a bit. They should fall down a number of times, most often when they’re still at home so I have the opportunity to pick them up, dust them off, and teach them how to do better next time. But kick them out of the nest when the time comes, and let them fall or fly as they will. I’m there to love and listen, to offer advice… but not to help at the same level, now that they’re adults.
Excellent points, all of them. When community supports community, it is a “social” thing. Not socialist, but working for the overall good of everyone is the “basis” of socialism.
But, I disagree vehemently that government at any level should be involved in the social safety net.
“Having a social safety net overseen by State government, and enacted by each county or town, that should work.”
It will not work.
It will not work because government at any level will be prevented from requiring any form of test or activity from the recipients. The ACLU and other organizations will make sure of that. You mention the Latter Day Saints, and their method will be a non-starter under government oversight or control. Even if they were able to start it off that way, the legislature would soon take away any controls.
“It used to be churches, though of course not everyone belongs to a church now. But there are certainly small groups in our neighborhood that we support, because we know THEY support the right people.”
It used to be churches in my town as well. They had really good success getting the homeless off drugs, and off the streets. Then the legislature passed a law saying they could no longer operate that way because it could be discriminatory if they required people to seek sobriety, or do work, or whatever other BS reason they came up with.
I want it to be back at the individual level.
There’s a lot to unpack here and I need to ponder.
For the moment, though, I will simply say, I believe no “right” that depends on the forced contributions of others is truly a right. (Sowell, perhaps? Need coffee.) A society that is rich enough may choose to provide, for instance, “free” food, healthcare or housing … but someone else is footing the bill.
Boris,
That’s why I say “free at point of service.” I know nothing is actually free. An example in my own community is flu shots. Our community (doctor led but with many members of the community involved) decided as a whole that it was both cheaper and more morally correct to provide free flu shots so that everyone could get them, than to let lower income people go without. This has resulted in less illness in our community, which means better schooling, better employee time in, and bunches of other stuff. Should that decision be made at the Federal level? Hell no. It must be a community question, answered BY the community.
And I’m a stickler for the word “free” being eradicated. I always say “free at point of service” because nothing in the world is free. TANSTAAFL. Each of us, rich and poor alike, needs to know where “free” stuff comes from.
Well said on all points.
I used to consider myself a conservative. You might even have labeled me as “far-right”. There’s a long story behind it, but I’m not there anymore.
Now I’m more of a “right-leaning (small ‘l’) libertarian”. Or maybe a (small ‘c’) constitutionalist. Pro-gun and pro-2A for sure (“shall not be infringed” means what it says about the “right of the PEOPLE” — not the right of the organized militia).
For the rest: If it doesn’t touch fingers with any clause or Amendment to the Constitution, the government has no business regulating it.
– Marriage is not mentioned in the Constitution, so other than keeping track of who’s entitled to whose death benefits, or who’s making children with whom (for census and heir/survivorship purposes), there’s zero reason for the government to concern itself.
– Abortion is also not mentioned in the Constitution, so until the fetus is potentially viable — and therefore has its own enforceable rights as a small person — at whatever stage of development that is, the “choice” should be a matter between the woman, the father, and the doctors (and optionally, the parents’ chosen deity and/or clergy); the government should be minimally-involved, and mostly just to ensure the safety of the procedure and facility.
– Freedom OF religion and freedom FROM religion are two very different things, and the government should have nothing to do with either. Some people are religious and will tell you all about it, and the government should not be able to force them to shut up OR force anyone else to listen to them (a.k.a. freedom FROM religion), any more than it can force them into a particular belief or non-belief (a.k.a. freedom OF religion). If someone is preaching and you don’t want to hear it, walk away, put your earbuds in, or plug your ears and sing “La la la” to yourself as you pass by.
(As an aside, the same applies to political beliefs. A Biden supporter can’t be mandated to listen to Trump supporters, but he/she can’t shut them down, either. And vice versa. But along with religion, that has gotten lost somewhere.)
On that note, the Louisiana Ten Commandments law bugs the crap out of me. Probably not for all the same reasons it bugs you, but I’m sure there’s some overlap there. I have no problem with the Christian Ten Commandments — any version (I have personal issues with the KJV as well) — being posted in public schools if and only if the Commandments, Ordains, Precepts, or whatever analogues from other religions are also posted alongside, equally sized. Actually, I think this might do some good, as it could foster understanding between students of different religious backgrounds; most of the “rules” from the major religions are basically the same, and if we can get kids focused on similarities instead of differences, I don’t see that as a bad thing. I even think it’s appropriate in certain contexts; in my high school we had a required “World Cultures” class — the teacher chose to cover both the similarities and differences between here and other nations’ cultures — and displaying different high-level religious doctrines could be very helpful in that kind of class.
Bottom line: Either we treat all religions equally, or we don’t touch the subject. Period. Full stop. (School districts’ overwhelming tendency to choose “don’t touch the subject” is a coward’s response, IMHO, but it is nonetheless Constitutionally viable.)
But such displays should be up to the individual teachers and/or schools. I have a huge problem with the government at any level mandating any such thing regarding religion or religious doctrines or texts.
Archer,
Marriage, check. Abortion, check (with my original caveats in place… if a woman’s life is in danger, she should have the choice of whether it’s her or the baby that dies, and frankly, in that single instance, it should be her alone that chooses… because some of us would choose ourselves, and some would choose our offspring, and both is okay and not really up to anyone else).
My fears about religion are heightened by the whole ten commandments thing. I am really upset over this. I don’t care if kids choose to pray in schools. I prayed in school. No one bugged me. No one asked who I was praying to, either. It wasn’t something the administration, or Big People, had anything to do with. And that’s how it should be. I’ve always said, as long as there are quizzes and exams in schools, there will be prayer… but again, that’s kid led. Teachers should teach their subject and keep their mouth shut about other stuff. For the most part.
I agree it’s “all or none” but I really REALLY think it needs to be none. Religious instruction should be at home or a house of worship, which is immanently appropriate. It should not be taught at public school. Putting the Commandments up, especially that particular version (which is definitely not the most popular version in Christendom, I might add), is heinous. Requiring classrooms to have Bibles and for there to be instruction out of them is heinous (in Oklahoma: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2024/06/27/oklahoma-mandating-bibles-in-school-classrooms-just-days-after-state-court-rejects-religious-charter-school/). No, just no.
I am a lover of freedom. And while the Left is definitely much more likely to infringe on freedoms, the Right has its particular infatuations as well (abortion and birth control, and religion). I do not want ANYONE, Left OR Right, infringing on my freedoms.
And not to you, Archer, but just in general… My freedoms are granted by my deity… not by my government. The government cannot take away my freedoms, they can only infringe upon my ability to practice them. The freedoms still exist, even when being quashed by a derelict government.
Thanks for your reply and your thoughts. (And sorry for the extremely long comment; I didn’t realize how long it was until I hit “Post”.)
If I may clarify a couple things, in particular about the religious texts posted in schools: “All or nothing” is the most Constitutionally-valid dichotomy, and in general it should be “nothing”, in the sense that the schools and districts simply should not have a say in what the students do on their own.
Unfortunately, that’s not how a lot of districts interpret “nothing” and “don’t touch the subject”. Instead, they take it to mean “prohibiting everything (except when forced to make religion-specific exceptions)”, when it should mean “neither endorsing nor prohibiting” and respecting students’ maximum freedom. Prohibiting everything is the cowards’ move; bucking the trend by respecting freedom (in a sense, choosing “all” while endorsing none) is more courageous by far.
Example: The Christian students in my high school had a “Prayer at the Pole” event on the first day of school each year, where they’d gather around the flag pole for a moment of prayer, in the morning before school started. It was a student-led event; no teachers or staff were involved. The kids did that until they couldn’t because the school disallowed it by banning ALL religious observances on school grounds — until the schools couldn’t do that because observant Muslim students MUST be allowed to pray when they need to (districts got sued under the First Amendment and lost), so the schools had to allow that … but still prohibited the Christian kids from meeting at the flag pole to pray. It was even strongly discouraged to be seen praying and giving thanks over lunch in the cafeteria. (How they justified and policed that, I don’t think I’ll ever understand.)
That’s where my “All or nothing” stance comes from. It’s not so much about what’s actively taught as what the students are allowed (or not) to do on their own.
Finally, I agree that freedom is the most important issue, and NONE of the major parties get it right. They differ only in what they would restrict; not one of them says there just shouldn’t be restrictions.
Hagar…. sorry, Alysson (sorry, but Hagar works for me)
I do not agree with most of what you wrote. In fact, I pretty much support it.
But… you lost me on the birth control should be free statement.
Nope. Sorry, I adamantly disagree.
Nothing is ever free. Nothing is ever truly “no cost.” Someone, somewhere expended their time (for an hourly wage) to produce those birth control pills. A company paid the utility companies for their electricity/water/gas, they paid their support staff to keep the machines running. Free means their efforts are not rewarded.
Can a pharmaceutical company produce birth control for less than $10 a month without insurance? Absolutely, and they have.
Should the government (read that as the taxpayers) pony up the $10 a month? No, no f-ing way. No… Seriously, you pay more than that for coffee a day, nope…
Free birth control is nothing less than socialism disguised as kindness. Making your desire to avoid pregnancy “my responsibility” is collectivism.
Sorry….
Hit send before I proof read.
First line should read…
“I do not disagree…”
Whoops….
CBM said, “But… you lost me on the birth control should be free statement. Nope. Sorry, I adamantly disagree.”
Gotta read the whole statement. I said “affordable or free at point of service.” I know the cost to make birth control pills, and it’s minuscule. The cost for IUDs is small. The cost for the shots and inserts version of birth control is very low. But prices have gone up and up and up… Why?
Regardless, when I say “at point of service” I mean it. There are plenty of places that, if you are truly poor, you can get free birth control. Planned Parenthood clinics. Your doctor’s office will give them to you for free sometimes. Other clinics offer them for free as well, like Urgent Care and such. If you can’t get them one place, get them another. But the “affordable” part was what I was referring to. We know that companies can still make a very good profit and sell the Pill, IUDs, and other forms of birth control for the equivalent of about $20 a month. Women are paying a lot more than that.
And frankly? The best birth control is when you men get snipped. Solves the problem entirely. 🙂
The snip is not failproof…
As my screen name implies, I now reside in California. Born and raised here. I served to protect this great nation, and traveled all over the world. I was blessed to be introduced to a wide variety of people from many diverse countries. Of all the places I’ve visited, there is still only one country I would call mine. You got it, the U.S.A. We have our problems, but what country doesn’t? What we need is a captain to pilot our ship out of these treacherous waters along with a tiller-man(person?) that has a firm grip on the rudder. Time will tell.
I like what I see here on the vine and agree with most. Retirement is here and the move to free America is in the works. We’ll be trading our lawnmower for a snow blower if you catch my drift. (See what I did there?) Keep up the great work here. I check the site with my morning coffee. Kick starts my day.
On abortion laws: I believe it’s impossible to make that a straightforward question no matter how much you talk about it. The best you can do is to come up with a middle of the road answer that’s tolerable to many people even though others hate it. The Canadian law you cite, or similar laws in any number of Western countries, are an example.
The reason it’s not straightforward is that it’s not a matter of one person but, at some point, of two. The debate about when the second person (the child) enters into the picture isn’t a scientific question but a religious or philosophical one, and for that reason it’s unreasonable to expect a single answer to be acceptable to all. Any definition you choose is in some sense arbitrary. 12 weeks? Heartbeat? Viable? Up to birth? All acceptable to some, unacceptable to others, in varying proportions. Some are not even close to fixed standards (for example “viable” keeps moving to earlier and earlier points in the pregnancy as medical technology improves).
The US problem is that Canadian-style “moderate” laws were not considered acceptable under Roe. And because of that, moderates have not converged on such proposals when Roe was set aside. We hear a lot about conservative legislatures passing more-restrictive-than-Canada laws like “heartbeat” laws. What we don’t hear is what liberals would pass. At times we get the impression that “any time any place” is their goal. That’s far beyond “12 weeks or special cases”. Consider the former governor (NC? VA? I forget) who argued, in public no less, that any time up to including the time of birth would be fine. And he pretends to be an MD!