Thursday, October 9, 2014

Christian Piety, Abortion, and Hypocrisy in Texas

I posted an article on Facebook yesterday that generated a relatively long stream of arguments back and forth.  The title of the article focused on abortion and the lurid specter of back alley abortions with filthy instruments and "doctors" with cigarettes dangling out of their mouths with dumpsters nearby to hold all the dead fetuses.  Obviously, the reactions on both sides were strong, but the article wasn't really about abortion.  It had three points as far as I could determine.  First, it focused on the problem Republicans are having wooing female votes and at the same time treating those female voters as if they were second class citizens who can't be trusted to make choices.  Next, it focused on the hypocrisy of Republicans in Texas (at least) who want to deregulate everything unless they don't. Finally, it brought up the hardships being brought upon the women of Texas who will now (some of them) have to drive up to 300 miles to get the kind of services provided by Planned Parenthood clinics.  Yes, a goodly portion of those services are centered around abortion, but those services also include screening for cervical cancer, screenings for breast cancer, family counseling, etc.

But the streamers, especially those conservatives who are Pro-Life, didn't talk about any of that.  Instead, they went on and on about the morality of abortion, about questions like "when does life start?", about how women use abortion as birth control and our tax dollars should not support that, and of course they talked about women throwing their aborted fetuses away.  It was a lot like the anti-abortion types who haunt sidewalks around high schools holding up graphic photos of aborted fetuses as if to say that abortion is wrong because it is so gross looking.  I understand the concerns of these folks, but I think their methods are tone-deaf, self aggrandizing, pompous, and completely divorced from reality.

The stream was fun to read and I could tell that most of the combatants were really enjoying the debate.  Just like we all kind of enjoyed the debate over health care six years ago.  Meanwhile, as we were debating health care, there were real flesh and blood people in the streets who were hoping the debate would stop and someone would actually do something.  Same thing was true in yesterday's discourse.  There were sophistic, some would say solipsistic, philosophical arguments.  There were impassioned pleas about infant rights.  There were clever, somewhat mean-spirited rejoinders, and I'm sure we were all  quite pleased with ourselves.  Meanwhile, there are a whole bunch of flesh and blood women out there who couldn't care less about categorical imperatives, or legal niceties, or tax law.  All they care about is how are they gonna make it through their unwanted pregnancy, the pregnancy they have because they couldn't afford, or were too overwhelmed to even think about, birth control, birth control that Republicans are busily trying to get rid of, along with their fiscally prudent and morally bankrupt cutting of food stamps.

I can't get my head around the picture of a club of white, male, millionaires making life decisions for (mostly) poor and indigent women.  Does anyone other than Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Hannity and the rest actually believe that the choice they want to disallow is a cavalier one?  When that flesh and blood pregnant lady above weighs her options, does the officially recognized point when life supposedly begins make a difference to her?  Does she actually think that since life doesn't start until the second trimester, if I just hurry up and abort my unborn child in the next week it will be okay?  The whole idea of some white rich guy deciding when life begins and moralizing about it is the most obscene and immoral thing I can think of.

There were also a lot of personal anecdotes that were used to shed light on the whole issue.  Excuse me, but anecdotes on either side of the issue are interesting but have no value.  Okay, you were able to hear a fetal heart beat, or see the outlines of the neonate on an ultra sound and you were moved.  Of course you were!  What kind of monster wouldn't be moved, but that doesn't make the choice to abort or not abort any easier.  It makes it infinitely more difficult.  That pregnant lady above doesn't give a shit, nor should she, about your experience.  And your experience gives you no right to legislate for others.

You don't want your tax dollars to go toward abortion.  Okay, I don't want my tax dollars to subsidize war, or corporate breaks to McDonalds, or tax free status to churches, or to the NFL (same thing).  Besides, once you sit down with your accountant, or hunker down with Turbo Tax, or just got out pencil and paper and calculator and pare down your taxes as far as possible, the check you end up sending to the IRS is no longer your money.  IT IS OUR MONEY.  What do you want to spend our money on if not to insure the health and happiness of as many of our fellow community members as possible.

Look, I still am unable to get rid of the shackles of my Catholic boyhood.  If my wife and I were ever in a position where an abortion might be an option, I can't imagine I could go through with it (of course, I'm not the one who has to go through it.)  For me, as a good, but lapsed, Catholic, abortion would be a mortal sin( Do Catholics still use that term?).  But for you or anybody else?  It is none of my business and it is certainly not the business of a bunch of clueless white guys (Read: Corey Gardner) in Washington.

If you think abortion is immoral, by all means don't have one.  Just keep your Christian piety to yourself when it comes to others.