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Posted
Wednesday, September 03, 2008 10:17 PM
| By
Rachael Larimore
Maureen, I suppose whether or not you find the Republican stance on abortion hypocritical depends on point of view. From a pro-choice perspective, yes, a commitment to banning abortion is government intrusion on a woman's body. If you look at it from the perspective of the unborn child, the platform stance is an attempt to recognize the sanctity of life for everyone, born or unborn.
Republicans, as a party, are not trying to ban birth control. (Yeah, I know there are some extremists out there. I don't like ‘em, either.) And I will defend to the death a woman's right not to have sex. But biology sucks. Blame God if you're religious; otherwise blame Mother Nature or evolution. Women have babies. Men don't. We trash our girlish figures and lose hours of sleep on those 2 a.m. feedings. It's not fair. Aside from birth control and abortion, there's no getting around it. Birth control prevents the creation of a life, but if you're pro-life, you believe that abortion ends one.
When Republicans say they don't want government intruding in their lives, it's because we trust people to make decisions that are sound for them, we trust people to take care of themselves. But when you're pregnant, you're not making decisions just for yourself. You're making them for another person. And believe me, I don't buy the load of crap that South Dakota is selling, that a woman who gets an abortion is terminating a "whole, separate, unique, living human being." No other "unique" person has ever made my back ache or caused my ankles to swell to elephantine proportions. At the same time, that "clump of cells" isn't going to turn into a watermelon, or a puppy, or a ficus tree. It's a human being.
Almost everyone, regardless of ideology, accepts some form of government regulation in their lives, largely in the name of protecting us. We accept speed limits and drunk-driving laws to keep us safe on the roads; we trust building codes to keep us safe in our homes and public places; etc. If, at the end of the day, a platform that respects the life of the unborn still represents a hypocrisy, well, then call me a hypocrite. It's a charge I can live with.
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