Revised and Unpolished Thinky - restricting Roe without the social safety net it demands.

[silveradept]

So, the land of up until recently Palin just affirmed that teenagers do not have the same rights as adults, and teenage girls have no right to receive medical reproductive services involving their own bodies without parental notification. They did not go so far as to say that if parents don't approve of the procedure, then it doesn't happen, but there is an additional two days that the teenager has to wait, so that their parents, protestors, and any other moralizer with a soapbox that takes delight in tormenting a teenage girl more than she already is, in this situation, can have their crack at her. Or, in the case of the parents, forbid and prevent her from getting that medical procedure. The only way of getting around the notification is, from my guess at the poorly-worded sentence, is to prove that the parents are abusers.

Elsewhere, an attorney general overtly hinted to his state board of health that they should treat abortion clinics like hospitals and subject them to the same regulations, which, if adopted, would likely bankrupt most of those clinics and force them to close.

In both of these cases, the intended idea is to block access to abortion without actually blocking access to abortion. Since the Roe v. Wade decision, the anti-abortion front has been carefully changing their tactics, maintaining a small front against the Roe decision, doing things like passing trigger laws, in case by some court case, the Roe decision is overturned, or a constitutional law passed outlaws abortions, but the grand majority of the effort has been shunted toward finding ways of working within the law to undermine it. There's no laws stopping someone from getting to an abortion clinic. However, if there's no doctors around to perform it, or all the doctors around have "moral objections", and you can't go past where the bus line goes, then you can't get access. If going to the clinic means that you get shouted ay by people about how you're going to hell, are a sinner, to the point where they crowd around you and make it seem like you can't get through, then you might not go. If you know that stepping into a clinic means that you might be the target of a domestic terrorist, you might not go. And especially if you find out that the attorney general is poking around for your name and your age, ostensibly because he wants to investigate whether you fall under child rape, but then handles the records in such a way that they could be exposed to any crusader who wants to go picket your house, then there's a good chance you won't go.

If every clinic has to operate as if it were a hospital, then many clinics shut down - they can't afford to raise millions to renovate and retrofit their spaces. there's nothing illegal about it, but access it cut off all the same. If the law requires the doctor to tell you about how you're making a grave mistake and you could potentially suffer complications for your evil act (and those required-by-law statements never mention the percentage of actual incidents), then you might not go. If you're suckered in by a "crisis pregnancy center", which makes it sound like they'll counsel and help you, they won't even mention abortions and will tell you you're going to hell if you even think about it. If the state has a vested interest in trying to shame you as much as possible before letting you get your procedure, then you might not go. If you have to tell your parents about it, then they can stop you from getting it, whether because they believe the same things the protesters do, they want to punish you for your decision, or they fear the social scandal. If you have to wait before receiving the procedure, it gives the people arrayed against you more time to convince you, either by force, by threat, by social scandal, by guilt trip, or whatever means they deem necessary, that what you are doing is wrong, and you might not go.

And then there are the candidates who say that even if you're raped, or it's a case of incest, you have to carry your child to term, with no exception. They won't even give you the choice to go. You're just not going.

So, tell me truthfully. Why would you want to subject someone to all of this extra pain, wait, anguish, and the rest? Why try to get rid of options? Especially when there isn't enough of a system on the other side of birth to make sure all those children who would be born have at last a fighting chance at being cared for and provided for. We understand the principles involved, and the sanctity of life, but a lot of people who are for not having abortions seem curiously silent for the social net needed to help those mothers and fathers survive and thrive. It almost seems like they want it as a punishment for youthful indiscretion, rather than in supporting the miracle of life.

It seems to be a major speck-plank problem, and I wish there were more people interested in resolving it, instead of just continuing on their current path.

As ilyena_sylph points out, though, the previous sentence assumes that those people promoting these ideas see their stance as a problem that needs to be resolved. This is not necessarily the case - if you believe that Divine Writ has said that all life is sacred from the moment of conception, and God visits terrible judgments, trials, and disasters on those who disobey Him, then banning abortion is a protective measure, to keep the country in God's favor, rather than to keep poking him with a stick to see if he'll do anything. Furthermore, if you also take seriously the command that The Poor Will Always Be With You, So Take Care Of Them, then doing charitable work, like in soup kitchens, food banks, and other places that help the poor, and in counseling abstinence until marriage to young women and men, you can feel like you're helping out those children whose life you want to save, by helping their mothers stay alive, as well as getting a healthy dosage of The One True God's Word, so that their souls as well as their bodies can be saved from the ravages of life here on Terra. Though it seems like madness, there is method to't.

Where the weird happens, more often than not, is in saying how unqualified the government is to provide these kinds of services to everyone (being intrusive in their lives, being wasteful of resources, not giving them a good churching while they get their food, etc.), the opponents point out the very reasons that government should have a safety net. I can be snarky and say that having Jesus (or "Jeezis" as hybridelephant.myopenid.com often uses to refer to the warped and twisted parody of the Christian savior used as a justification for very un-Christ-like things by his followers) thrown at you every time you have to go get food to survive is fairly intrusive into your life, the truth of the matter is there needs to be services in place for the poor where they don't have to weigh whether they're up to being aggressively witnessed to as they're just trying to feed their family. Private organizations, as all churches and charities are, have finite resources, and rely on the generosity of their members to continue operating and to have their pantries stay stocked. When everyone gets slammed with a recession, especially when firings are rampant, more and more people will stop being producers and start being consumers. Everyone will share to the best of their ability, but at some point there are just too many people and not enough loaves. Regrettably, we have not yet perfected the art of feeding five thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish. The government's taxing authority can be seen as imposing on the freedoms of the market, but it also means that everyone is able to sustain their neighbors when they have plenty, and be able to rely on their neighbors when they do not. (You could make the argument that taxes are more like the rich men giving from their surplus than the poor woman giving all she has, but people get fed, either way.) It will look, at times, like those who are completely undeserving of assistance are getting more than they should, but the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. If you open your papers up or turn on your news broadcasts, you see what happens to people who don't have a safety net - those children that someone worked so hard to bring into existence die. Their mothers die. With no church group around to support and sustain them, they die. With no government support for them, they die. Until someone can prove that private citizens will stay charitable to all the organizations around them to support everyone who needs a hand and every child that will be born from the outlawing of abortion, that every child that needs a home and family will be adopted, that every mother will have support and the means to care for herself and her child, there has to be a backstop somewhere. It's cruel to say that every child must be born, but it's okay if some of them die because they couldn't get the support they needed. Or worse, they could have gotten the support they needed, but there was no-one there to tell them, no social worker or government agent making the rounds and offering their support as well as the support of private citizens, no clergyman who visits the places where the poor are to minister to them and to tell them of the help they can receive.

It seems very much against the message of the religion that there is such a thing as an acceptable casualty rate for mothers and children. So why does it seem like the crusaders for life are only focusing on one half of the equation, pouring their time, money, and effort into making sure all those children are born, but not pouring time, money, and effort into demanding that there be something in place that will take care of them afterward?

Comments

Re: thank Ghu for the DW comment limit

[silveradept]

The part that said "They don't see it as a problem. They're doing what they think God is commanding them to do, and trying to make it so that we don't get visited by the wrath of God." We can both agree that the interpretation that leads to this worldview seems twisted, bizarre, and strange, but there's at least a line of logic through it that's followable and understandable.

I think I'd like to see more of the free-flowing rant. You've provided me with valuable perspective.