Turning away from Roe v. Wade
Abortion is murder and should be illegal, period. Hopefully pro-lifers would all agree on that. So what happens when our avenue of making it illegal disintegrates? Many people, tired of fighting the political battle, are transitioning to an effort to fight the underlying causes of abortion. A lot of the people that I’ve heard talk about this have talked about changing hearts and minds, but a disturbing few have started picking up big-government catchphrases, subsidized this and subsidized that, etc.
The problem is, the alternatives offered to us by politicians will only make matters worse. Things like subsidized contraceptives and subsidized child care may seem wise, but in the long run they only continue the great American tradition of irresponsibility. Most of those who have abortions and those who care very little for their children have one thing in common: irresponsibility. Making it easier for irresponsible people to have worthless sex, then dump their kids off at a daycare at America’s expense only creates a new generation of irresponsible people.
Although the GOP has not given us much aid in our cause to make murder illegal, the liberal alternatives only increase the underlying causes of abortion. Fight the underlying causes of abortion, yes, but fight it by changing hearts and minds, not by encouraging irresponsibility.
It makes me sad to see some pro-lifers resign themselves this way, being lured to seek alternatives to banning Roe v. Wade that are simply more governmental fixes to sin – fixes that never have helped, fixes that never will.
Today I ran across this quote in the Crunchy Con combox, from Obama in an interview in Christianity Today:
Our goal should be to make abortion less common, that we should be discouraging unwanted pregnancies, that we should encourage adoption wherever possible. There is a range of ways that we can educate our young people about the sacredness of sex and we should not be promoting the sort of casual activities that end up resulting in so many unwanted pregnancies.
I’m not going to comment on his vagueness (although I suppose I just did), but I hope for everyone’s sake that he actually means what he seems to be saying here. If there’s one thing Democrats will fight for, it’s the right to have sex wherever, with whomever, and in whatever way we like; considering that they’ve traditionally been “sexual liberation” flag-wavers, it seems strange for Obama to suggest that we seriously try to restrict our promiscuous sex. I wonder if he’d say the same thing to a magazine besides Christianity Today.
15 February, 2008 at 2.57 PM
people should be permitted to freely discourage abortion but it should NOT be made law!
http://www.mediamyopic.wordpress.com
17 February, 2008 at 4.53 PM
I understand where you’re coming from, but I cannot hold that abortion is murder and that it should be legal at the same time. To believe one is to deny the other.
22 February, 2008 at 11.04 AM
Banning abortion is not the answer – it only results in people finding nasty and desperate ways to go around the law. There’s already too much despair out there without adding to the numbers of damaged children whose mothers didn’t have the resources to take care of them and whose fathers skipped off. Making adoptions easier may be one solution, as would providing cheaper access to childcare so single parents could afford to work and take care of a child.
Having said that, I remember the single mother living in the apartment next door to me with a clearly-abused child. She was constantly swearing at him and calling him stupid and slapping him around. I shudder when I remember those scenes. Then she got pregnant again and I realized it was must have been for the extra money people get on welfare when they have children to care for… I wish there was some way that society could be more caring for its lost ones, that every child could be a wanted child.
23 February, 2008 at 8.12 PM
I agree that there are a lot of good solutions to the problem besides making it illegal. I’m all for programs and efforts to end abortion on a societal level. I’ve known unwanted children and I don’t want to see any more unwanted children or irresponsible parents.
I do not and cannot regard the illegality of abortion as being negotiable or something that can be reasoned around. If it’s wrong to kill an infant – if it’s murder – then it should be illegal, no ifs, ands, or buts. Just like torture – if it’s wrong universally, it should be illegal.
I’m not advocating that every piece of Christian morality be turned into law, but I do think that when it comes to matters of life and limb, people should be bound by a oriented to something more just than “how can we best get people to stop doing X”.