Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Never-Ending Abortion Debate

(Another older post, which is depressingly even more appropriate today than it was 6 years ago )

I wonder what one of the so-called "pro-life/pro-capital punishment" people would feel if a scenario like this were to happen:  their own precious daughter is brutally raped and beaten by a vicious, murderous, serial rapist/murderer.  Another of their children is also raped and murdered in the same attack.  The surviving daughter, age 13, is discovered to be pregnant as she lies in hospital recovering from the vicious attack.  An already high risk situation (due to her extreme youth and her injuries) is exacerbated by her diabetes.  The doctors tell the parents that to continue the pregnancy will kill their daughter.  Protesters line up outside to tell them that this man's seed has the right to "live" inside their own precious innocent daughter,  even though the attempt to continue the pregnancy will kill her and the potential baby.  The rapist/murderer is caught and sent to death row....sneering all the while that he can "live on" in the child he has planted in his victim.

Of course, they will bleat on about how with a god's help they would endure.  But my guess is that their rage at the killer (and their easy ability to watch him go to the death chamber)  would rise to the fore and they would realize that to force the pregnancy on their daughter would be to victimize her again.

Certainly, this is an extreme example (though it could happen).  But sometimes an extreme example helps draw clearer, simpler lines around the issues -  something we sadly seem to need these days.

The point is,  if we allow the government to outlaw abortion for any reason, we allow the government to force women to become slaves to their biology...whether their pregnancies result from carelessness, forced sex, violence, incest or whatever.  Men,  on the other hand,  suffer no consequences at all for their lapses in judgement,  or even from their brutality (when it is rape)  unless they are caught and unless the charges can be made to stick (which is all too rare).  An anti-abortion law,  however,  would ensure that woman can never escape the judgement and interference of society.

Wait.  Could that actually be the point?  As some computer people I am acquainted with sometimes say,  is that actually a "feature" and not a "bug"?

Some societies (like extreme Islamist ones) are fine with laws which subjugate women almost totally to the control of men (and most conspicuously through denial of reproductive rights)...they seem to glory in the subjugation and torture of women.  Is that what we want here, I wonder?

 People who want to believe the lie that this country was founded upon "Christian" or "Biblical" principles should be very careful about what they are wishing was true.  Fundamentalist adherence to the Bible's 'laws' would be very much like sharia law in fundamentalist Islamist societies: Brutally harsh,  especially on women.

 Perhaps some people actually do relish and look forward to a fundamentalist society in America where women are subjugated to the extent that they were in Afghanistan under the Taliban.  However,  I think (or is that really only hope?) even most fundamentalist Christians would not look forward to such a prospect.  Yet,  they work hard to bring about the circumstances under which such a society could be easily ushered in.  I believe that the fundamentalist movement in America is heading in that direction...women are looked upon in these churches as mere vessels to carry babies.  Their rights and their needs are totally subjugated,  in this religious thinking,  to the welfare of zygotes.  When people start to embrace that sort of ideology,  we are a short walk from a taliban culture here.

No comments:

Post a Comment