This article talks in part about the "pro-choice" reaction to the movie Juno. I don't by any means think that teen pregnancy should be endorsed or encouraged, but these reactions are ridiculous!
Her script's insouciant endorsement of teenage pregnancy, with no repercussions, shame or consequences, has angered pro-choice activists who claim it sends out a message that is naive, unrealistic and irresponsible. [Doesn't this sound more like something Christian conservatives would say and that "pro-choicers" would denounce?]
...
"A teenager who saw this movie would feel like a moral failure for choosing abortion," says feminist commentator Katha Pollitt. [Oh, we wouldn't want that! That would be horrible! We must shield her from this awful truth!]
"The mother in me winced at Juno, that wisp of a child-woman, going through pregnancy and childbirth." [But it's ok for the child-woman to go through an abortion, no biggie, that's what every mother wants for her daughter]
...
"Juno tells young women the best option is to have the baby, and it glorifies that choice." [God forbid life is glorified! These sick people think the best option is abortion and that abortion should be glorified]
Sounds to me like the only choice these "pro-choice" people support is abortion. As if Juno is so horrible for showing a girl CHOOSING to keep her baby in a positive light.
9 comments:
To start: I'm Pro-choice. I'm also a parent. I respect science and the scientific process, too. I'm not too cool on organized religion. For you, I suppose, that'd make me a hippy.
Then, it is my hippy belief that until we have a system that'll provide needed care for all those who choose to reproduce themselves--however indiscriminately--and can't afford it (I believe this is the case in Juno), including healthcare, daycare, after-school care, educational parity, etc, etc, (there's going to be a lot of etcs here) for as long as it takes to make their offspring productive and upstanding citizens, then it's hypocritical to require women and their sperm donors to have babies they can't support. (See, once you start down this road it can on and on. Deny a mother pre-natal and post-natal care and you run the risk of her child becoming a gimp. Imagine what that'd cost the state.) This would have to also include children from all ethnicities and classes, no matter how undesirable you would deem them to be.
You say, "What about adoption?" Great, bring it on! Where is it? Anyone who's pursued adoption as an adoptive parent knows how difficult, expensive, and unlikely it is. Oh, and BTW, even if we could do all of the above, how would we pay for it? (Let the friggin' French pay for it all with their higher taxes! But you know, Doctors are paid better in France, healthcare costs are lower, and more people get it: Ironic, isn't it?)
To look at it in another, purely economic way: America can't afford NOT to have legal and accessible abortion.
I, for one, wish we had the kind of compassionate system and infrastructure that said "we'll give our citizens reproductive choice--you know, like every other industrialized nation in the world--but we'll also provide you with every opportunity to help ensure that your child has the necessary resources to be healthy and productive, and if you like, born!" Why? Because productive citizens are in our own national interest. But that's not our system. Not even close. Well, if you don't count our expanding prison system. (How does Libertarianism square with the prison-industrial complex?)
I find your political self-description interesting but less than ingenuous: Socially Conservative, Neo-Con, AND Libertarian? Just the Neo-Con and the Libertarian aspects alone would be tearing at each other like pitbulls in a ring. (Okay, firstly, Libertarian as term itself could mean anything: There are versions of libertarianism that cover the spectrum from far right to far left.) Limited liberty and democratic process as well as increased government secrecy and scale (the result of a growing military and its rise as the leading exponent of our foreign policy): This has been the legacy of Neo-Conservatism so far. The Department of Homeland Security, Wars on Terror [and all other abstract wars, say, like the one on drugs], the CIA, the NSA, illegal government wiretapping [that one should make a libertarian's head spin!], designated "free speech" zones--and let's throw in police officers that taser pregnant women--whatever value they may have to security--a matter that could be hotly debated--they DO NOT increase or protect individual liberty.) This is the legacy of the Neo-Con's vision for perpetual war. For Libertarians, it's a vision that shouldn't be a pretty one.
As for the war: Whether you support it or not the truth is we can't afford it. The true costs (including the great many external costs) have yet to be revealed. But whatever trillion plus dollars the war is costing us, it's WAY OVER realistic sustainable levels. Not if you want police, fire, and public schools, public works like sewage, parks, and infrastructure, etc, etc. Well, there's always higher taxes. Okay, between Blackwater and Halliburton you could shrink government to a trickle and privatize all those services, but even a privatized service has got to be paid. (It also tends to be less accountable, more expensive, and feeds like a self-replicating monster.)
Reducing our civilian government while at the same time increasing the size of our military will only lead us ever farther from your avowed Libertarianism. Actually, the result would be properly called Fascism (and that ain't no democracy). This is how Neo-Conservatism trumps Libertarianism.
The war, like forced birth, needs to be discussed in a way that honestly accounts for all of its costs (and I mean all) and how it will be paid for, now and into the future. Long after the last shot is fired (which is a day the Neo-Cons don't ever expect to come) and long after the last baby is born. That is a demand a true Libertarian would make.
Ultimately, the answer to every national issue is economics and its full disclosure. You want all every baby born and every drop of oil controlled (as if!), then you better be prepared to pay for it.
On another note: Anytime terms like "liberal" or "conservative" are used to label a monolithic group as if every member of said group would think alike and be equally stupid, evil, ignorant, etc, it diminishes the writers' credibility. Chill on calling everything you disagree with a liberal cause.
I've got an idea for an untapped revenue stream that could solve the shortfall: Tax the churches!
Yours,
An Uppity Hippy
Wow, "uppity hippy," it's going to take me a long time to correct your ridiculous, all-over-the-place ramble. It's probably not even worth responding to, but if I don't, I'm sure you and those on your side will see it as a victory and we can’t have that.
I don't see what science and the scientific process have to do with this post - although science is what compels me to defend the unborn because it is science that teaches us that life begins at conception, that a zygote and embryo are merely stages in the life cycle of homo sapiens, that an unborn baby is not a piece of its mother's body but rather a being with distinct and unique DNA, etc, etc, etc (there's going to be a lot of etcs here).
I also don't know why you assume how I define "hippy." The only time I've even used the term on the blog was describing the anti-war grandmas doing yoga outside the Berkeley recruitment center in my Jan. 31, 3008 post. And come on, they are totally hippies.
I am troubled that you believe life should only be born into the most perfect of circumstances and that the cost to the "state" should be of paramount importance. Such a utilitarian and heartless view of life!
You imply that I find other ethnicities and classes and the handicapped "undesirable" (completely false and offensive) but whose side is killing minorities, the poor and the disabled in the womb at a disproportionate rate? Oh, that's right, it's Planned Parenthood that loves to open its abortion mills in the worst areas of town to affect their modern version of eugenics - PP's founder Margaret Sanger's legacy.
Just because adoption is currently difficult in this country, we should just throw it away as a viable option? How about working to cut the red tape and get rid of the hoops through which to jump? And why do you assume the state has to pay for EVERYTHING? Must be the "hippy" mindset?
Again, your look at abortion in a purely economical way disgusts me, but doesn't even hold true - the country did not collapse before 1973 or when abortion was illegal throughout the country.
When you say "we'll give our citizens reproductive choice--you know, like every other industrialized nation in the world" I hope you aren't implying that the US does not give what you would define as reproductive choice. The US has some of the most liberal abortion laws of any country in the world! Most other countries have restrictions on when abortions can be performed-some only in the first trimester- but in the US we just had to have an all-out brawl to make it illegal to jab viable babies in the back of the skull with scissors with the rest of their body dangling outside the womb.
You think the state should pay for everything and provide "necessary" resources to all and create productive citizens. I completely disagree. It is not the job of the government to give us everything we could possibly ever need, including (based on some of your descriptions) things we don't. You look to the government to provide cradle to grave resources but I look to society and our fellow man. The organized religions you are cool to, as well as charities, community groups, neighbors, family, etc, etc, etc help provide to others who are in need – AND (you’ll like this) at little or no cost to the state!
You seem puzzled that I am Neo-Con, AND Libertarian – I think I explained that. I said I am neo-con on FOREIGN POLICY, but FAIRLY libertarian on ECONOMICS – as in laze faire. Obviously none of the three labels I use completely describe my views, that’s why I use all three.
I also found this comment laughable about the private sector: “It also tends to be less accountable, more expensive, and feeds like a self-replicating monster.” Are you kidding me? That description fits the federal government to a T! It even matches some of your complaints about having so many agencies, wiretapping, etc.
It’s also funny that you take me to task more using labels and saying that it diminishes the writer’s credibility when you do it in the next sentence – assuming the suggestion that taxing churches will get my goat. Whatever. Not to mention your assumptions that I am racist, greedy, only care about the cost, and your descriptions of neoconservatism.
You have become the evil you presume those on the Right to be - you reduce human beings to dollar bills and determine their worth based on their cost instead of right or wrong. But innocent, vulnerable human life, i.e. the unborn child, is priceless.
"The mother in me winced at Juno, that wisp of a child-woman, going through pregnancy and childbirth."
But not sexual intercourse? How do you think she got knocked up in the first place?
I love how the Left says that teenagers are old enough to have sex and make good decisions. Apparently, though, they aren't old enough to give birth, which would seem to me to be a prerequisite for being old enough to have sex.
"Choice" is code for "abortion." So very sad.
"As if Juno is so horrible for showing a girl CHOOSING to keep her baby. . ."
She kept her baby?
I haven't seen the movie, but I was rather under the impression that she didn't.
What she CHOSE (emphasis on the word 'chose') was to carry the pregnancy to term and surrender the resulting child to a closed adoption.
She chose to keep her baby ALIVE
Indeed. Thank goodness she had the right to make that choice.
It would have been tragic if she hadn't been allowed to make her own decision for herself.
Thank goodness she had the right to make the choice to keep her baby alive? What kind of a sick world are we living in where the option of murdering healthy unborn children is considered a sacred right and worshiped under the euphemism of "choice"? That the true tragedy would have been not allowing a 16 year old girl to make that decision?
The true tragedy is abortion. Read related posts:
Insight into fetal pain
http://alexashrugged.blogspot.com/2008/02/insight-into-fetal-pain.html
Abortion: Legal, but unsafe, and not rare
http://alexashrugged.blogspot.com/2008/02/abortion-legal-but-unsafe-and-not-rare.html
Pro-"Choice" Violence
http://alexashrugged.blogspot.com/2008/01/pro-choice-violence.html
66 babies in a year left to die after NHS abortions that go wrong
http://alexashrugged.blogspot.com/2008/02/full-birth-abortion-in-gb.html
March for Life, crazy pro-choice response
http://alexashrugged.blogspot.com/2008/01/march-for-life-crazy-pro-choice.html
Women Deserve Better Than Abortion
http://alexashrugged.blogspot.com/2008/01/women-deserve-better-than-abortion.html
' What kind of a sick world are we living in where the option of murdering healthy unborn children is considered a sacred right and worshiped under the euphemism of "choice"? '
A less sick world, in my opinion, than one in which all pregnant women, regardless of circumstance, would be forced to carry to term and then to relinquish if they were unable to parent or considered unfit to do so.
In such a world, abortion would be driven underground, as it was in the past.
The reality is that abortion is a necessary evil.
The primary argument for decriminalization was the need to protect maternal health because of evidence that the alternative policy had created a "back alley industry" which subjected women to unacceptable medical risks.
I notice you specified "healthy" unborn children.
Where do you draw the line?
I agree that part of the reason abortion was legalized was to take it off the black market and make it safer by regulating it, but if you check out my post from yesterday, you'll see that abortion clinics are not regulated and are given hands-off treatment because ANY action is adamently opposed by abortin advocates and considered a violation of Roe.
http://alexashrugged.blogspot.com/2008/02/abortion-legal-but-unsafe-and-not-rare.html
The same people doing "back alley" abortions on January 21, 1973 were still doing abortions on January 23, 1973 only then they were given legality and could let people in the front door instead of through the alley.
I said healthy children, because a vast majority of aborted babies are healthy. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice group that monitors abortion stats, "Women also cited possible problems affecting the health of the fetus or concerns about their own health (13% and 12%,respectively)"
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/psrh/full/3711005.pdf
I am also against using abortion on "unhealthy" babies:
http://alexashrugged.blogspot.com/2007/05/law-of-unintended-consequences.html
How can we define life based on the mother's perceptions? One wanted 10 week old fetus is a baby, another unwanted one is just a blob of tissue, a clump of cells heading for termination.
Every life is precious and unique and deserving of worth just by virtue of being human.
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