Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/11/15/supply-side-jesus-2.html
…
9 Likes
26 Likes
20 Likes
This political cartoon is either as old or older than I am. That’s HW Bush. The GOP hasn’t budged on their pro-birth, anti-life stance in decades. Political cartoons from decades ago should be horribly obtuse, not immediately relevant!
35 Likes
It means being single-mindedly devoted to serving the interests of your wealthy donors at the expense of everyone else, and getting buy-in from the masses by playing up the culture wars.
3 Likes
Have you ever had a long talk with a pro-lifer? I have and I was surprised how closely aligned our beliefs were (I’m pro-abortion).
The core difference between what I believe and what they believe is when life begins. The reason that’s so important is that’s the point where legal protections start.
My problem with their argument is the idea that life begins after conception is a religious belief and our laws shouldn’t be based on beliefs that aren’t generally held. To them, it’s obvious that life begins at conception. For me, that’s clearly wrong.
In my experience, most pro-lifers, especially women, actually do support social programs benefiting children and young mothers.
Yes, I have. And their beliefs are a mass of contradictions, double-standards, and flat-out lies designed to punish women for having sex that they disapprove of.
25 Likes
They may (though I’m not sure they do), but they don’t vote for people who support them. They vote for people who gut those programs.
17 Likes
Yeah. It’s a real problem for single issue voters. If you are a pro-lifer also in favor of generous social programs, what can you do when the pro-life candidates belong to the anti-social-welfare party?
1 Like
Then they have to acknowledge that supporting born children isn’t really that important to them, and they’re willing to overlook Matthew 25:35-45. I’m sorry, that may sound kind of dickish for me to say, but really, that’s where they stand if they like it or not.
24 Likes
No it doesn’t. It sounds accurate.
4 Likes
supporting born children isn’t really that important to them
Exactly right. Being born doesn’t indicate the start of life, it’s merely the point of separation from the mother.
When pro-lifers vote, they often have to choose between a candidate that supports protections for unborn children and one that support social welfare programs.
Consider this situation:
Two babies are set before you and you get to make a choice that affects their fate.
If you choose option A, the first baby is guaranteed access to healthcare and education throughout their childhood and the second baby is killed. If you choose option B, both live, but neither is guaranteed anything.
Now, if you truly believe that a fetus is a life and that life is as valuable as any other life, then sometimes that’s what the choice at the polls looks like.
1 Like
I don’t even like the term pro-life. They’re anti-abortion. Letting them own “pro-life” is worse than calling them “anti-choice”. It’s loaded. In one case against their opponents. In the other, them.
18 Likes
I like anti-choice because when it comes to abortion, there’s more than one life to consider.
More generally though, when I’m talking with a person, I usually use the terms they want.
2 Likes
The problem with this analysis is that the single most efficacious way to avert abortion is to provide effective birth control on demand. There is literally nothing else in the world that comes close.
As with many hypothetical conundra, the right answer is to ask, “How did we get to the situation?”
That is, why are there two babies before us in this example? How did we come to have a baby that is facing imminent death? Why was that baby conceived in the first place?
The answer, in nearly every case, is that someone was denied control over their own fertility – by the very same person who is decrying the situation and throwing their hands up to insist that anyone who would favor “killing the baby” is a monster.
“You have no way to get home except for driving and you’re drunk. If you don’t drive home, your son will die for lack of medicine on the back seat. What do you do?”
What you do is, don’t get drunk.
18 Likes
I prefer the term “pro-birth”.
3 Likes
It was never about abortion. It is about punishing sexual active women who are not housewives.
12 Likes
I fully agree with the improvement of the analogy that you propose.
But for many anti-abortion proponents, the real subtext is controlling women’s sexuality.
For them the suggestion about not getting drunk morphs into
7 Likes
By the “Conservative” definition of life, God kills 1/2 of all children before they are born. It’s called spontaneous abortion, or miscarriage, and it happens in about 1/2 of all pregnancies.
4 Likes
I agree with everything you wrote except this:
The conundrum isn’t that hypothetical when you are a pro-lifer and are standing in a polling booth.
You’re asking “how did we get to this situation” and are going back 9 mos for the answer. I’d go back a lot further and try to figure out why religious beliefs rather than medical reality is the foundation upon which legislation is built.
Mostly though, I replied because I know pro-lifers and they aren’t anything like the caricature you’re painting when you say they care about fetuses more than babies. Is that what the pro-lifers you personally know are like?
