Saturday, July 12, 2008

But what about the Children?

Pro-Lifers are extremely upset this election because nobody is pandering to them. John McCain is one of those moderate Republicans who doesn't like to talk about abortion and Barack Obama is a Democrat which makes him more evil than the anti-Christ.

I've always been a pro-choice guy because as a guy I want the option of abortion available to me if I become pregnant. I know that such a thing is scientifically impossible but with my luck the minute they permanently ban abortion I'll get knocked up.

It's not the pregnancy that frightens me, the logistics of delivering the baby are troubling. I'd either need a c-section, which would require cutting a hole in my abdominal wall, or that baby would have to work it's way down my urethra. I watched a guy force out a bladder stone once and it seemed painful. I happen to know for a fact that babies are bigger than bladder stones. My penis would look like a party favor. And no doctor would believe me. They'd think I was sticking firecrackers in my pee-pee hole. Again.

I've made this argument, sans the exploding penis, to Pro-Lifers and they always seem annoyed. That can't happen, they always say. I find this perplexing because most Pro-Life types seem pretty convinced that Jesus walked on water, healed lepers, turned water into wine and managed to be resurrected. They take all of these crazy fables in the bible literally but can't seem to wrap their minds around the possibility that I might have female parts hidden somewhere in my abdominal cavity. If these people believe that god magically knocked up Mary why is it hard to believe that this same god would want to screw with a non-believer like me?

So this election is all about the babies. The poor unborn children who will never see the light of day. What kills me is that once these precious miracles see the light of day the Pro-Lifers call it a day. Millions of children are put up for adoption and they never find homes. Where are these Pro-Lifers? Another ironic thing about Pro-Lifers is that they are almost always opposed to things like welfare and affirmative action. Interesting....it seems that the fetus is more important than the baby.

Not only do Pro-Lifers not adopt these unwanted babies, they work hard to ensure that homosexuals don't either. How's that for selfish and misguided?

Pro-Lifers love to mock the Pro-Choice crowd by calling us Pro-Abortion, or Pro-Murder. So I guess we should call them Pro-Abuse, Pro-Neglect, and Pro-Poverty. The vast majority of Pro-Lifers take time out of their family planning clinic harassment schedules to support the fulfillment of the death penalty but the irony of hurling around the Pro-Murder moniker seems lost on them. It's because God wants it that way, I suppose...but what if God wants that baby aborted? Maybe he's guiding that women to the clinic to rid the world of the next Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, or Jerry Falwell.

The thing that kills me about Pro-Lifers is the fact that they love to characterize women who seek abortion as a means to terminate an unwanted pregnancy as sexually reckless sluts who use abortion as a means of birth control. This is not true. Abortion is too expensive to use it as an alternative form of birth control. Most of the women who seek abortion as an option only do it once and some of them are married women, with children, who simply can't afford to take care of one more child.

Lump all those Pro-Life people in with the lunatics who bomb abortion clinics and they cry foul. It's unfair to generalize about them even though their weapon of choice is the aspersion.

It's impossible to have a reasonable discussion with Pro-Lifers because so many of them believe that "god" is the ultimate trump card. They're like Ice Cube slamming his last domino on the table in Boys in the Hood yelling, "Domino, motherfucker!" Except, of course they yell Jesus. But you have to do it right. To these crackpots Jesus is a four syllable name. Say it with me: JEE-HEE-ZUS-UH

What kills me is the fact that this god they talk about didn't have the foresight to properly codify abortion in the 10 Commandments. Pro-Lifers argue that it's right there under Though Shalt Not Kill, but I checked the original stone tablets, which are a binding agreement, and saw no such clarification. If we're going to take the Commandments literally shouldn't we also suspend the death penalty?

Most Pro-Lifers will make an exception when the mother's life is in danger. Some won't, apparently the fetus trumps everything to them, but most will cut mom a little slack if she's about to die. That's nice, but God didn't clarify that exception either. You'd think that this is because god gives us credit for having common sense but take a long hard look at religion in general and you'll see a paucity of common sense. I'd expect an omnipresent being to anticipate confusion. That's the problem with trying to look at this from a biblical perspective. God simply didn't do a good job explaining himself.

Abortion has always been a lip service issue for presidential candidates, particularly Republicans who have to cater to the segment of their base that is Pro-Life. McCain isn't exactly Pro-Choice but he's not as Pro-Life as his party's base wants him to be. The official Republican Platform does feature a plank that calls for a national ban on abortion with no exceptions while McCain has long been a proponent of changing the platform to relax the stance. Obama is taking the Jimmy Carter approach to abortion which is to say that he is morally opposed to abortion on a personal level but that he would not seek to support legislation that would impose his moral views on others.

So regardless of what happens this November, abortion will remain legal for another four years. That's good news for me because I don't know nothing about birthing no babies.