Partial Birth Abortion

[Rox]

Wig,

I think Alex was talking more about the whole anti-abortion political group, not Opranauts. I'm inclined to agree with his observation.

I've had occasion to argue with some of those folks, and while they're talking out of one side of their mouth saying that no woman should ever have an abortion for any reason, out of the other side of their mouth they'll bitch that the barren among them are "forced" to adopt children from other countries because in the US there are no "desirable" babies to adopt.

Of course, I had to press the issue and ask if "desirable babies" equates to "white infants." Of course it does, and going further, these people want HEALTHY (as in not born of a crack-addicted mother) white infants. Considering that most non-addicted, healthy white mothers are more likely to continue a pregnancy and then KEEP their babies, it's not a surprise that there's a shortage of available healthy white infants.

I find it even more ironic that most of these people who find it unconscienable for a woman to "play God" by deciding to end a pregnancy have no problem whatsoever with the people who "play God" by going through fertility treatments; some of whom end up bearing LITTERS of children as a result... and more often than not those kids are sickly all their lives, needing medical treatment and special care that goes beyond what their parents can afford. So the next thing we know, the rest of us are bearing some of the financial burden either through higher insurance premiums or taxes. If "God" had wanted those people to have children, they would have been able to without the intervention of science. And if they weren't so selfish and egocentric, they'd adopt an unwanted child who had a shot at a long healthy life instead of birthing a litter of kids whose lives are likely to be rife with medical problems.

I've seen abortion foes come right out and advocate forced sterilization or forced contraception for "welfare moms," because they're "tired of paying for the irresponsible decisions of other people." And I have to laugh at the hypocrisy.

None of us really WANTS our hard-earned money to help pay for something we don't believe in. The anti-abortion people don't want theirs to help women terminate their pregnancies at any stage. I don't want mine to help infertile couples spit out litters of kids whose quality of life is negatively impacted by the circumstance of their gestation. But that's the way things are set up, so we have to take the bad with the good.

I'd love to see the day come when there's no need to fight over whether abortion should be legal or not because people will be sufficiently educated in how to prevent an unwanted pregnancy that there will be little or no need for surgical terminations. But until and unless there's a big change in education, and RU-486 and the morning after pill are widely available, there's need for women to have access to safe and legal abortions; otherwise we're back to coathangers, back-alley "specialists" and babies in trash cans. I'll take a leap of faith and say that NOBODY wants to see that.