I’m conservative. That being said, I believe that abortions should be legal, but that we need to stop lying to ourselves. We are not only killing a fetus, but we are killing that little infant that cries at night because she wants her bottle, that toddler that takes her first steps and utters her first word “Mommy,” that girl that scrapes her knee on the playground, the awkward middle school tween that gets her first iPod and discovers rap music, the high school teenage girl that won’t shut up about how terrible her life is, the college student that always asks her parents for money, and the adult that has the potential to start her own family. It’s so easy to not put a face on something when you can’t see it, but that little bit of life inside a woman’s womb is somebody. That fetus has an identity, and we’re striping that from him/her. Let’s stop lying to ourselves—we’re killing something. I find it fascinating how people try to forget that what they’re talking about is a human life, and try to forcefully forget that by simply not thinking about it or encouragement from others about how it isn’t a person yet. It's the thought process of a sociopath. Just because the fetus is not born, not given a birth certificate, and not given a social security number doesn’t mean that it never existed and should be forgotten. Yes, abortion should be legal because you have a right, a privilege even, to dictate your future, but both parties must agree to this because whether people like it or not, it’s half of the man’s child as well.
I personally think that abortion is a distractor issue, because if Republicans wanted to overturn Rowe v. Wade, they would’ve done it with the Bush-Reagan Administration with a majority in the House and Senate. Republicans might be sending Democrats on a wild goose chase with no geese. In the grand scheme of things, abortion is not a complicated issue; by making a law with a better argument you make a controversial topic noncontroversial. That’s where people get this particular issue wrong. Stop making the narrative that if abortion is made illegal that women will go have unsafe abortions anyway, so the law should never pass. That’s the equivalent of saying, “Hey, people are going to smoke crack, shoot up heroine, and molest children anyway, so let’s just make it legal so that people aren’t breaking the law and they’re doing these things safely.” Come up with better logic. If a woman gets pregnant from being raped and she doesn’t want to have her rapist’s kid, she can kill that baby. If a woman doesn’t want to give birth, she doesn’t have to have the kid. If having this baby will kill the mother, she can take her child’s life. If you’re a mistress and have a bastard son with a married man, you can go to a clinic and let them work their magic. But what you don’t do is lie to others and yourself about what decision you’re making. Make the decision and live with it.
I see merit on both sides, but I agree with liberals, just for different reasons.
On the liberal’s perspective, I’d see it as a benefit to that child. If people truly believe that circumstance dictates people’s future, that there is no free will, and someone’s decisions are meaningless in life, then why have a child that the parents did not want in the first place? The kid will live a terrible life if they stay with the biological parents that didn’t want it in the first place. In addition to that, you’re saving tax payer dollars for not having to pay nearly 40,000 per child to put them through foster care. Plus, you’re helping with the overpopulation crisis. Small sacrifices help the whole, right? But this isn’t how they portray the issue and its detrimental to their cause.
On the conservative’s perspective, I see it as the most noble thing any right-winged person can do, and people never see it that way. Republicans are altruistic in their fight for making abortion illegal. They are literally giving a voice to someone that doesn’t have one and, believe it or not, that is something that the Republican party was founded on. They have a long history of speaking out against true injustice and giving a voice to people that don’t have a forum to speak out themselves. They did this with the African-American slaves in the Civil War. They did this with women’s suffrage when Republican Senator Aaron A. Sargent proposed the 19th Amendment and was finally ratified in 1920 under a Majority Republican House and Senate. They did this with the 1973 Rehabilitation Act with a majority on the hill for handicapped people and again with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was passed with George H.W. Bush’s endorsement, support, and signature. The list goes on and the evidence is clear. So, when people make the argument that Republicans are attempting to take away women’s rights, they don’t seem to understand that those are the individuals who fought tooth and nail for the freedoms they’ve been bestowed today. They’re only fighting for the most oppressed group in the entire world, children! Those who don’t have a voice or forum to speak out against injustice, literally. Fetuses can’t communicate, but if they could, they’d choose to live.
Abortion is not a women’s rights issue, it’s a civil rights issue. The oppressed are children and the oppressors are pro-choice individuals. And I'm a part of it! The pro-choice movement is an infringement on those American’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but that’s not how the law sees it. The only problem is, our government is so massive and too large at this point that the law tends to contradict itself. Those fetuses are protected by the 14th Amendment that states "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." But, Rowe v. Wade says that it is the choice of the woman under the 14th Amendment. Who do you listen to? The Supreme Court justices from 1973 or the Framers of our nation? Do you listen to George Washington, Ben Franklin, James Madison, George Mason, Roger Sherman, James Wilson, and Will Patterson, or Warren E. Burger, Will Douglas, Will Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart, Byron Marshall, Harry Blackmun, and Lewis F. Powell, Jr.? I’m not promoting that we change the way in which the law is written, I’m simply working with what I’ve got, and trying to be a realist. If you want to kill your daughter, go for it while you still can, but don’t pull out the innocent card to gain sympathy to justify your actions.
Let me point out one flaw in your reasoning. The Republicans in Congress CANNOT override a Supreme Court Decision on the constitutionality of abortion. That would require a Constitutional amendment. At this point in time, an Amendment that banned abortion would NEVER EVER be ratified by 3/4 of the states. I agree that the unborn should be referred to as a life, and abortion should be referred to as killing your unborn child. That might frame things in a way that is more understandable to people making that decision.
I'll be sure to do so, thanks for the invitation! It's great talking to you too!
It's great talking to you! If you'd like to continue our engaging dialogue, I just posted a discussion in the Business and Finance Category about the national debt. You could voice your opinion and even ask some questions yourself to me/other people.
It definitely is a convoluted issue, that's for sure.
The only way to reduce health care spending is to broaden the requirements of obtaining health care. Perhaps if a person has a criminal history, they wouldn't be able to apply. Maybe if this person has a history of drug abuse, they wouldn't be able to apply either. I'd honestly have to be in a room with people that know more about the health care bill trying to pass to make a decision. I'll admit when I'm in the dark on a certain issue, and the new healthcare bill is one of them because I don't have time to read it.
We definitely need to reform health care! It really is a drag on our national spending. What do you think are some of the best ways to reduce health care spending?
I'll give you a simple answer, but I'm actually about to make a post about the national debt in the near future on the Business and Finance page. The way to diminish national debt is to spend less and tax more, but to do that we have to pull money from mandatory spending, specifically health care, which means we need a reformed health care bill. It's best to leave discretionary spending alone.
That's fair. Because of discrimination and stereotypes regarding vocational schools, they might not be an option for everyone.
It's a little controversial, but I believe that raising the retirement age would help diminish the national debt. Also, instituting an energy tax on oil, coal, and gas would raise money as well as encourage the usage of alternative energy sources that might be more eco-friendly long term. How do you think we can help diminish our national debt?
Which is why we need a sustainable economy with lowered regulations so that we can promote more growth nation-wide. And a problem with vocational schools is that there's a stigma that kids that go to vocational schools are somehow stupid and inferior to students that prefer the traditional classroom setting. The only problem with this stereotype is that it is true. The best and brightest of students our age aren't going to learn a trade; we're going to college and building more onto our foundation of knowledge. Perhaps we should make each student learn some sort of trade; should we make the guys take shop class and the girls can take home-ec like back in the 80’s? Well, that wouldn’t work now for obvious gender discrimination reasons. I wish we lived in a simpler time where people could be assigned a role and accept it, but I see the problem of where certain people would come from. And another problem with that is it would call for more funding, which we don’t have. Vocational schools should attempt to pull the best and the brightest, but unfortunately that’ll never happen (except in Bernie Sanders’s America where college is free and we eat candy and play in a field of daisies and don’t worry about anything like money or food or bad thoughts). It’s all very complicated and intertwined with every other issue in our nation. Specifically, national debt. How do you think we can help diminish our national debt?
I don't see a simple answer to this question either! Without proper education and/or vocational training - which I really believe should be emphasized in high schools to a greater extent - jobs don't seem to be fulfilling and as enriching, which is only reasonable. One possible way is to introduce more information in communities to children at a younger age about how they could take advantage of educational opportunities to break out of the generational cycles of poverty, though many school districts themselves do not receive adequate funding, which is a different but related problem.
There would have to be a new market for these people to work in, and unfortunately it would have to be made by the government. Ronald Reagan once said “I believe that the best social program is a job,” but this was not what he meant. It's a scary thing when we allow our government to be involved in the economy because they can do so much wrong. I could write a 20 page paper on how the government’s role in the ‘08/’09 financial crisis was significant and some of the blame should be on them, but I don’t have time to write it all out, haha. So, what should the government make these people do to get their checks in the mail? Whatever the recipients are willing and able to do, I guess. I’d say that if the government would make these people actually work for their dollar in an efficient manner, which is a BIG FAT IF, they’d simply over staff municipal services and nothing would be accomplished. I’d try and make them do community service or even direct them to local businesses that need workers, but something along the way would screw everything up and I’d be back to square one. It's not a simple question. What do you think, Rachna?
That is a pretty awful incident. It is true that most infrastructure jobs require previous training, and that it might be more economically sustainable to have experienced workers rather than 'workfare' workers be responsible for these jobs. What sector(s) do you see the majority of these job opportunities for welfare recipients opening up in?
I love the concept of welfare to work, however, there are some variables that people have to put in place. One thing people don’t think about is that people on welfare know they’re going to get paid regardless of how hard they work and if the quality of their service is low. For instance, you could have John working tirelessly trying to pick up garbage on the side of the street in order for him to receive his check and benefits. But Scott is just lollygagging around and receives the same amount. We’d need to change the welfare recipients’ means of how they get their checks based on performance so that our democratic system isn’t being ran on equal pay because of the obvious inefficiencies. Then you’d have to hire people to watch these welfare workers do their job to ensure that they’re all doing their fair share and that supervisor determines the value of their work. The problem with this is that you’re giving bureaucrats the ability to use their discretion instead of specific guidelines, and they might have subconscious biases and prejudices based on a whole host of demographics like race, gender, etc. It’s a Supreme Court case just waiting to happen. Say John is white and Scott is black—Scott could attempt to sue the government for racial profiling because he heard that the white guy is getting paid more than him. And Denice could file a similar case, but in the scope of gender discrimination. Labor is the majority of the work in which the government would have to make these people perform because other jobs require a certain skill or trade in which these people wouldn’t be able to accomplish because the lack of that skill. If they had a skill or trade, they’d more than likely be able to get a job somewhere instead of receiving government assistance. On top of all of that, the quality of the work is low. One program of the WPA (The Works Progress Administration) had welfare workers lay down a road, but none of them had any idea of what they were doing. So, the road was similar to that of Lightening McQueen’s work in Disney Pixar’s movie “Cars” (https://media2.giphy.com/media/13riaBnmdHB8Fa/200_s.gif). It costed tax payers even more through this program because once the welfare workers were paid, the government had to hire a private corporation to dig up the awfully paved road, and relay it. So the best thing to do when it comes to welfare to work is to give these people the small minuscule jobs that the government has to do but can have these people do instead like picking up trash on the highway and interstate, cleaning windows on public buildings, and even having them volunteer at a local soup kitchen. This would help the local community and the person’s self-esteem that they’re actually doing a service for people, obtain a check, and possibly have a higher level of confidence and self-pride in order for them to stop depending on the government. I’d be open to other job opportunities that the government would be able to provide for welfare recipients. Hopefully in a decade or two, there would be no need for these programs and our market will be able to provide enough jobs so that the government could give out all possible working contracts to private entities.
Weaning people off of welfare is really quite important, in order to prevent cycles of poverty and sometimes even apathy from continuing. What are your thoughts on encouraging workfare?