Abortion...Is It A Passe Issue?
I'm inclined to say yes.
Roe V. Wade was ratified by the Supreme Court when I was 13 years old. I am now 48, which means it has been the law of the land that abortion is legal in all 50 states for 35 years, and unless the makeup of the present Supreme Court is radically changed in the next 4 years, I don't see it being overturned by the McCain/Palin republican ticket if they are elected.
Personally, I'm very pro-choice and I believe that abortion, though it should never be used as a means of birth control (even though we know it is), should be safe, sane, legal and available to any woman who feels like she wants to have one, and I have believed for years that the Republicans need to get off of it as an election issue, because in my mind, it's passe, and only gives the Democrat attack dogs a reason to beat the public over the head with their paranoia that the Big Bad Republicans are gonna snatch their god given right to end a pregnancy.
So far, in talking to Democrat Obamanoids, all I've heard is that McCain wants to overturn Roe V. Wade.....so what? People in hell want ice water, too, and I doubt very seriously that in the first 4 years of a McCain administration that either McCain or Palin would waste much time trying to reverse Roe v. Wade. Let's face it...it's really not high up on the list of things they will need to confront in the Oval Office, and unless 2 or 3 of the more liberal members of the court retire (which I doubt, unless one of 'em dies in office, the libs on the SCOTUS will hang onto their seats until a fellow liberal becomes president), which I don't see happening. I can see Ruth Bader Ginsburg now (in my imagination, of course), hanging onto her seat until she is a desiccated skeleton with a gavel in her hand. They can time their retirements according to who's in the white house, unless they die in office, and I don't think any of them are on their death beds at the moment, or in the next 4 years.
If all that keeps anybody from voting Republican is abortion and the identity/minority game, then you're not too smart, but of course the abortion meme has turned into a giant bludgeon for the left, so they're not going to be giving it up any time soon, which is really kind of a shame. I benefited from Roe v. Wade, and I refuse to be a hypocrite in my old age because I don't have to worry about unplanned pregnancies anymore, but I still vote Republican because I believe that our sovereign country needs to be defended and protected, and I despise the leftist, socialist political agenda that would see us on our knees both politically and economically.
As I wrote in a previous essay, I think that my own generation, the baby boomers, are the most self centered and destructive generation ever born to America. They grew up with perfect, comfortable childhoods and learned nothing but contempt for the very country that has given them the advantages they have in life. There has been no real adversity in my life, I have never suffered on behalf of my country because even though there have been 3 wars in my lifetime, my own life was not touched by these events. They were fought and are being fought abroad by an all volunteer military, and I have not been required to make any sacrifices to my own way of life for these wars, and neither have my generational peers.
Of course, I'm at the tail end of the boomer generation, so I wasn't a 60s radical hippy, and though I was much more liberal in my misspent yoot, I've never been the type to hate my country for a laundry list of historical sins. You cannot rewrite or really repair historical wrongs, and to hold an entire nation of people hostage to the historical grievances of a minority group of people is simply untenable. Yes, I'm sorry that the people who went before me did the Native Americans wrong, and I'm sorry that those who went before me owned slaves, and I'm sorry that the Japanese were interned in camps during the 2nd World War, but that happened before ANY of us (the boomers) was born and it is history. What we can do as a nation is acknowledge that our ancestors did wrong and perhaps apologize, which has been done, over and over, and even a congressional proclamation to blacks apologizing for slavery, and move on. Enough already.
I doubt that there will be any American muslims seeing the inside of a concentration style camp if war were to break out with a muslim country (oops, it did!), so we can safely assume that Americans have learned their lessons from history and that that less than pretty part of our history as a nation is over and will never happen again. Same with slavery and killing Native Americans for sport.
I would like to see both the far left and the far right abandon abortion as an issue as well. Women can only be free if they have full authority over their own reproduction and having abortion available is a necessary function of a free society, whether the religious people like it or not. It is the same with the pill. To me, it is none of your business if you don't believe in birth control and I want to buy the pill from you if you are a pharmacist. Your political and religious beliefs should not be forced on me, and if you don't like dispensing the pill, get another job...one that does not conflict with your beliefs and that you can practice within the bounds of what you believe.
Roe V. Wade was ratified by the Supreme Court when I was 13 years old. I am now 48, which means it has been the law of the land that abortion is legal in all 50 states for 35 years, and unless the makeup of the present Supreme Court is radically changed in the next 4 years, I don't see it being overturned by the McCain/Palin republican ticket if they are elected.
Personally, I'm very pro-choice and I believe that abortion, though it should never be used as a means of birth control (even though we know it is), should be safe, sane, legal and available to any woman who feels like she wants to have one, and I have believed for years that the Republicans need to get off of it as an election issue, because in my mind, it's passe, and only gives the Democrat attack dogs a reason to beat the public over the head with their paranoia that the Big Bad Republicans are gonna snatch their god given right to end a pregnancy.
So far, in talking to Democrat Obamanoids, all I've heard is that McCain wants to overturn Roe V. Wade.....so what? People in hell want ice water, too, and I doubt very seriously that in the first 4 years of a McCain administration that either McCain or Palin would waste much time trying to reverse Roe v. Wade. Let's face it...it's really not high up on the list of things they will need to confront in the Oval Office, and unless 2 or 3 of the more liberal members of the court retire (which I doubt, unless one of 'em dies in office, the libs on the SCOTUS will hang onto their seats until a fellow liberal becomes president), which I don't see happening. I can see Ruth Bader Ginsburg now (in my imagination, of course), hanging onto her seat until she is a desiccated skeleton with a gavel in her hand. They can time their retirements according to who's in the white house, unless they die in office, and I don't think any of them are on their death beds at the moment, or in the next 4 years.
If all that keeps anybody from voting Republican is abortion and the identity/minority game, then you're not too smart, but of course the abortion meme has turned into a giant bludgeon for the left, so they're not going to be giving it up any time soon, which is really kind of a shame. I benefited from Roe v. Wade, and I refuse to be a hypocrite in my old age because I don't have to worry about unplanned pregnancies anymore, but I still vote Republican because I believe that our sovereign country needs to be defended and protected, and I despise the leftist, socialist political agenda that would see us on our knees both politically and economically.
As I wrote in a previous essay, I think that my own generation, the baby boomers, are the most self centered and destructive generation ever born to America. They grew up with perfect, comfortable childhoods and learned nothing but contempt for the very country that has given them the advantages they have in life. There has been no real adversity in my life, I have never suffered on behalf of my country because even though there have been 3 wars in my lifetime, my own life was not touched by these events. They were fought and are being fought abroad by an all volunteer military, and I have not been required to make any sacrifices to my own way of life for these wars, and neither have my generational peers.
Of course, I'm at the tail end of the boomer generation, so I wasn't a 60s radical hippy, and though I was much more liberal in my misspent yoot, I've never been the type to hate my country for a laundry list of historical sins. You cannot rewrite or really repair historical wrongs, and to hold an entire nation of people hostage to the historical grievances of a minority group of people is simply untenable. Yes, I'm sorry that the people who went before me did the Native Americans wrong, and I'm sorry that those who went before me owned slaves, and I'm sorry that the Japanese were interned in camps during the 2nd World War, but that happened before ANY of us (the boomers) was born and it is history. What we can do as a nation is acknowledge that our ancestors did wrong and perhaps apologize, which has been done, over and over, and even a congressional proclamation to blacks apologizing for slavery, and move on. Enough already.
I doubt that there will be any American muslims seeing the inside of a concentration style camp if war were to break out with a muslim country (oops, it did!), so we can safely assume that Americans have learned their lessons from history and that that less than pretty part of our history as a nation is over and will never happen again. Same with slavery and killing Native Americans for sport.
I would like to see both the far left and the far right abandon abortion as an issue as well. Women can only be free if they have full authority over their own reproduction and having abortion available is a necessary function of a free society, whether the religious people like it or not. It is the same with the pill. To me, it is none of your business if you don't believe in birth control and I want to buy the pill from you if you are a pharmacist. Your political and religious beliefs should not be forced on me, and if you don't like dispensing the pill, get another job...one that does not conflict with your beliefs and that you can practice within the bounds of what you believe.
posted by Duchess Of Austin at 1:14 PM
1 comments
