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Dec. 13th, 2004 12:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
somedaybitchan interesting article at [Tech Central Station] about the potential effects of the Bush re-election on the post-Roe v Wade world.
had an interesting conversation with my mom about pro life/pro choice. disclaimer: mom's a diehard catholic. she fed me the "marriage, and by extension sex, is only to have kids" party line. i blinked, paused, sipped my beer and then rather nonchalantly asked, "gee mom, so you're saying that you and Larry had no right to get married then, bein' that you were 50 and he was 62 at the time?" i love watching her head get 'sploady.
i understand the pro-life position that life is precious. i believe life is precious. what i don't believe is that anyone has the right to tell me that i shall birth a child because i am effectively held hostage by my internal plumbing and because they said so, or that i shall not have sex unless i'm going to do so for the sole purpose of procreation - cuz lord knows there aren't enough children dying of starvation in the world, or being beaten to death by mentally unstable parents that can't cope, [to wit: "at approximately 1400 hours (today), a newborn infant was found in the toilet waste tank of a greyhound bus that arrived in Town A from Town B"] or being born drug addicted or HIV positive, so we need to make more - or that my personal belief of when "life" actually begins shall be dictated by someone else's opinion.
why don't the pro-lifers impress me and do the hard stuff, like sticking around after the kids have been born and helping finance their lives and the social health of the neighborhoods they grow up in. or maybe, instead of being judgemental fucks, they can try and create an environment that makes it easier for a woman to choose to keep a child and be a parent, instead of being hypocritical bastards and hiding behind their bibles, hurling invectives at these women. poverty? it ain't fun, and nobody's life goal that i know of. nor do i know of any kid that has the ambition to grow up and be a hooker or a prostitute. it's the choices many are forced with in the micro-world they inhabit.
the decision to birth a child cannot be undertaken on a whim. as is easily witnessed in just about any newspaper or magazine or on many tv shows and films, millions of parents are only parents on a technicality and do the job badly. very badly. biology doesn't equate to parenting skills.
one could, however, argue the good/bad of this ad nauseum and never get either side to agree. the point that the pro-life folks are missing though, and the point that should matter to all americans most, is that the government has no right to insert itself, pun intended, into the private lives of its citizens. it is not the government's place, state, local or federal. the choice to have a child is between the male and female involved and their conscience.
there's a reason this country has a separation of church and state. i understand that deeply religious folks draw great strength from their religious beliefs and their religious way of life. that's groovy. it's not my way. don't impose it on me. that's how this country was founded. freedom to practice what you wanted. that includes freedom to not have someone else's religious beliefs shoved down my throat and made into law. i also understand that for folks of faith, religion is a part of their daily life, no less integrated than breathing. that doesn't make them nefarious, it just makes them religious. i also don't think it equates to an "agenda". it's just who they are.
it's my responsibility to hold my lawmakers accountable to the Constitution and the separation of church and state. it's also my responsibility as a citizen to remind them. that's what my elected officials are for. they work for me, not the other way around. when it's something as important as Roe V Wade, they need to be reminded pretty loudly.
Roe V Wade is ours to lose. and we'll only have ourselves to blame if it's overturned.
eta: for typos, clarifying sentences and a rant: committing acts of terrorist murder on personnel that work at abortion clinics and using the argument that you are pro-life as the justification has got to be the dumbest fucking thing i've ever heard. you're basically expecting me to believe that you can murder people that perform abortions, because abortions are murder and need to be stopped, and you see nothing wrong with your logic. that's a special kind of stupid. murder is murder, fucknut. /rant.
had an interesting conversation with my mom about pro life/pro choice. disclaimer: mom's a diehard catholic. she fed me the "marriage, and by extension sex, is only to have kids" party line. i blinked, paused, sipped my beer and then rather nonchalantly asked, "gee mom, so you're saying that you and Larry had no right to get married then, bein' that you were 50 and he was 62 at the time?" i love watching her head get 'sploady.
i understand the pro-life position that life is precious. i believe life is precious. what i don't believe is that anyone has the right to tell me that i shall birth a child because i am effectively held hostage by my internal plumbing and because they said so, or that i shall not have sex unless i'm going to do so for the sole purpose of procreation - cuz lord knows there aren't enough children dying of starvation in the world, or being beaten to death by mentally unstable parents that can't cope, [to wit: "at approximately 1400 hours (today), a newborn infant was found in the toilet waste tank of a greyhound bus that arrived in Town A from Town B"] or being born drug addicted or HIV positive, so we need to make more - or that my personal belief of when "life" actually begins shall be dictated by someone else's opinion.
why don't the pro-lifers impress me and do the hard stuff, like sticking around after the kids have been born and helping finance their lives and the social health of the neighborhoods they grow up in. or maybe, instead of being judgemental fucks, they can try and create an environment that makes it easier for a woman to choose to keep a child and be a parent, instead of being hypocritical bastards and hiding behind their bibles, hurling invectives at these women. poverty? it ain't fun, and nobody's life goal that i know of. nor do i know of any kid that has the ambition to grow up and be a hooker or a prostitute. it's the choices many are forced with in the micro-world they inhabit.
the decision to birth a child cannot be undertaken on a whim. as is easily witnessed in just about any newspaper or magazine or on many tv shows and films, millions of parents are only parents on a technicality and do the job badly. very badly. biology doesn't equate to parenting skills.
one could, however, argue the good/bad of this ad nauseum and never get either side to agree. the point that the pro-life folks are missing though, and the point that should matter to all americans most, is that the government has no right to insert itself, pun intended, into the private lives of its citizens. it is not the government's place, state, local or federal. the choice to have a child is between the male and female involved and their conscience.
there's a reason this country has a separation of church and state. i understand that deeply religious folks draw great strength from their religious beliefs and their religious way of life. that's groovy. it's not my way. don't impose it on me. that's how this country was founded. freedom to practice what you wanted. that includes freedom to not have someone else's religious beliefs shoved down my throat and made into law. i also understand that for folks of faith, religion is a part of their daily life, no less integrated than breathing. that doesn't make them nefarious, it just makes them religious. i also don't think it equates to an "agenda". it's just who they are.
it's my responsibility to hold my lawmakers accountable to the Constitution and the separation of church and state. it's also my responsibility as a citizen to remind them. that's what my elected officials are for. they work for me, not the other way around. when it's something as important as Roe V Wade, they need to be reminded pretty loudly.
Roe V Wade is ours to lose. and we'll only have ourselves to blame if it's overturned.
eta: for typos, clarifying sentences and a rant: committing acts of terrorist murder on personnel that work at abortion clinics and using the argument that you are pro-life as the justification has got to be the dumbest fucking thing i've ever heard. you're basically expecting me to believe that you can murder people that perform abortions, because abortions are murder and need to be stopped, and you see nothing wrong with your logic. that's a special kind of stupid. murder is murder, fucknut. /rant.
