Abortion is a human right, so pay for mine
The U.S.’s commitment to human rights involves a rhetorical nod and some half-hearted policy. Theoretically, at least, we believe there are some things that all people should be entitled to regardless of their ability to pay….
But there is no pretense when it comes to abortion. The right to abortion is not a true right in this country. It is treated as a negative right when it’s actually a positive one….
The right to choose without federal funding for abortion is like the right to an education without a public school system. It’s a mean joke.
… [W]omen shouldn’t have to rely on charity in order to control their reproductive lives…. I want abortion to be federally funded now.
~Maya, Feministing, March 8
Mar.10, 2011 6:00 am |
Health care |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
This is preposterous nonsense. Prenatal homicide is NOT a “right”, it is a crime.
All human beings have a fundamental right to live a full human lifespan according to our nature. We have a right to live through both the unborn and born stages of existence. Killing us when we are either unborn or born is a violation of our rights and therefore, by definition, a crime.
If we can be killed in the unborn stage and have our entire lifespans taken from us, then we do not have a right to live our lives and thus cannot have ANY rights at all.
Stop talking about abortion “rights”. They are logically impossible and entirely a figment of the imagination of anti-human being activists.
I think Maya needs to take a civics class. I have a right to free speech, but that doesn’t mean the government is going to pay for me to rent a billboard. Nor should they. So, yeah. Comprehension fail on her part in a major way.
Entitled much, Maya?
“…Women shouldn’t have to rely on charity to control their reproductive lives….”
No, much better that they rely on the government. Funny, I thought being “in control” of something meant that you were responsible for making it happen, and for the outcome. Being “in control” doesn’t mean expecting someone else to take away the consequences.
I’m a project manager at my work, and I am “in control of” (read: responsible for) completing the work, creating and monitoring project budgets. If the work doesn’t get done or the budget gets busted, it’s MY responsibility, not the guy down the hall.
Jen B, you hit on a basic notion many people fail to comprehend: being in control of something means being responsible for it. The part of the brain that processes this concept often develops relatively late, ie adolescence, or in some people, never.
Excellent, Jen B. Exactly.
And it’s been said here before, but I’ll say it again…If abortion is a private matter, then these women should pay for it themselves. Period.
What about abstinence? What about natural family planning–without any use of a chemical contraceptive? What about educating our youth with how their body REALLY works–the perfect design of the female cycle and how to be responsible for our true fertility? Face it, contraception has proven to fail time and time again, and sterilization is for animals who cannot control themselves. Being truly in control of our bodies is knowing how they exactly work, and then, acting in accordance with the truth in a respectful manner for both men and women.
Maya: at the risk of repeating myself:
There is no such thing as unicorns, centaurs, or abortion rights.
They are all figments of your imagination.
You and your friends have been saying “don’t like abortion, don’t have one.” Well, I’m not paying for one either.
Your Body, Your Choice……Your Own Damn Money!
Wait, does this mean the government will pay for my guns too?
How is abortion a POSITIVE right? How? It involves the killing of a child, it is based on lies, and essentially sends the message that women’s ability to get pregnant is a flaw that needs to be corrected. Everything about abortion is negative. Everything. Everything about it is backwards.
essentially sends the message that women’s ability to get pregnant is a flaw that needs to be corrected
That’s so true, Mary Lee.
… [W]omen shouldn’t have to rely on charity in order to control their reproductive lives…. I want abortion to be federally funded now.
Federal funding is basically “charity” from faceless donors. No one should be too proud to take charity from friends and neighbors when they really need it and it’s offered.
The right to choose without federal funding for abortion is like the right to an education without a public school system. It’s a mean joke.
It’s not a right to choose.The ill-conceived law which WILL be overturned is based on a right to privacy. How you can compare abortion to education is unfathomable.
I’d like a big gated mansion to ensure my right to privacy and pursuit of happiness. Is the federal government obliged to pay for it? Well?
~~~
Eric,
Exactly; it’s all about taking personal responsibility for one’s life.
Charity: a way in which people of means help people in need. Charity was a dirty word to Margaret Sanger. But charity is democratic: we each contribute what we want to whom we want. In this way, a society is created and improved according to the will of the people.
Communism: forcing people to fund programs that are against their judgement and will. Communism is ALWAYS hand in hand with force, oppression, and often dictatorship and the death of free speech and expression. Communism ignores the will of the people, takes the fruit of their labor and distributes it against their wishes. Lenin and Marx were wrong, wrong about the division of resources in society, wrong about everything. Nowhere has socialism or communism benefitted the people who were forced to endure it.
If I wanted to live in a communist country where I had no will, I would move to China. Maya is welcome to go there herself.
oh- oh- ooh!! She’ll get her abortions in China!!! Those are gov’t functions!
well, precisely, funded by Japan and the little gnome who runs Berkshire Hathaway. But it’s washed through the Chinese gov’t. It’s not charity then, is it, if it’s pre-killing soldiers in a war and dependent on the whims of a homicidal, adulterous billionaire? It’s gov’t services, and a right. Right?
She could even have a dramatic, life-changing abortion for a television station! In China! She’d be on TV, which is where all the important things happen, right? She could agree with their social workers, and their collectivist enforcers.
What could go wrong with this scenario?
Your Body, Your Choice……Your Own Damn Money!
Amen!
I found this argument to be interesting with some different points. However, I do not beleive that the argument should be based only upon the assumption that the government will pay for the rights that it grants us. In your argument you compared abortion to receiving an education, these are two completely different ideas. An education will help a person to achieve a better life while an abortion takes away a life.
Well now I think she’s inventing a bunch of rights here. The inalienable rights in the Constitution are life, liberty, and property.
Healthcare, education, housing, etc are nice, sure. However they can’t trump the three inalienable. That is the purpose of the Constitution is to protect the rights that we should be inherently guaranteed as humans.
With abortion, they are trying to put their supposed “right” to a “happy life” and consequence-free sex ahead of the baby’s right to life. And that is wrong.
Maya points out that we pay for all sorts of services even if we don’t 100% agree with the way they’re run. Abortion should be no different. My tax money goes to pay for wars. My insurance premiums (and the tax breaks for the companies that provide that insurance) go to pay for men’s treatments for conditions that I could never develop myself. Abortion should be “financed” on this level.
I find it ironic how these arguments shoot down feministic ‘equality’ and yet they all seem too blind to notice. They’re practically shouting ‘a woman as-is is defective and lesser than a man, only with government sponsored surgery can women be equal to men’! That’s what their point boils down too. Sorry ‘sista’s’ THIS women is a proper helpmate to my husband and equal in rights to any man WITHOUT any surgery at all!
My tax money goes to pay for wars. My insurance premiums (and the tax breaks for the companies that provide that insurance) go to pay for men’s treatments for conditions that I could never develop myself. Abortion should be “financed” on this level…
DRF,
Okay, for argument’s sake, say our tax dollars go towards cancer help. You may never develop cancer; however, you could save a person’s life. How’s that such a bad thing? (Not that the government should pay for everything, but as I said, for argument’s sake).
Whereas in the case of an abortion it’s very rarely a case of life and death (and I define that as a person who is on the brink of death and the abortion would save their lives, not someone who thinks they can’t go to college or have a job because they’re pregnant). But 9 chances out of 10 the abortion ends up with a dead pre-born human being.
This idea of entitlement, that the government should give me everything I need is the way socialism and government controlling our entire lives insinuates itself into a society.
Sorry ‘sista’s’ THIS women is a proper helpmate to my husband and equal in rights to any man WITHOUT any surgery at all!
Whoo-hoo, Jespern! Love this! I surely don’t need abortion to feel like an equal partner to my husband either!
Here’s to being able to be feminine and woman and equal WITHOUT needing abortion to do that.
:-)
@DRF: We’ve been all through this. Pro-abortion folks have been billing abortion as an exclusively private thing for over forty years now. “My body, my choice.” “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one!” If it is exclusively private, you have no right to any public funds for it.
As was so succinctly said elsewhere, we don’t like abortions, and we don’t want to pay for yours.
Alice, I agree — why should my public dollars go for your private choice?
If these pro-aborts are so concerned about ability of women to afford abortion then why don’t they do the abortions for free?
I mean, our CPC’s don’t charge women for pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, clothes, baby items, or social work we do for them. We put our money where our mouth is..
Why don’t they? Every abortion clinic should be FREE
and mostly abortions are not needed, but rather ‘wanted’ or coerced. I just met a woman who has a loving husband, two children and was planning to go on to graduate school. She felt she had ‘no other choice’ but to have an abortion. She could not have been more wrong! I have a friend who finished high school with a baby, went on to college and graduated (a couple of babies later), and has now adopted a child.
Her first child, a girl, went on to go to high school, college and is now studying to be a lawyer. It can be done. And we had ready people willing to help with goods and time for baby sitting.
Would it have been hard? yes – but people do it all the time. It may have taken longer, but basically she was saying that her graduate degree was more important than her children, her family. And she had other options, but by the time she got herself to the abortion clinic, she was convinced that this was the only way.
Such a shame.
And the University here makes it easy- since their insurance will pay for it. If you pay for it, they will come. Another shame.
Also – when barriers to pay are removed, people will rely on this more.
When I changed insurance for my vision, the new plan included the transitions lenses for sunlight. I would never have paid for them for myself – and always said ‘no’ when that option was offered to me (too expensive). But the last time I was in, I decided to say ‘yes’ because they were ‘free’ to me.
If you have to pay for things yourself, you think twice. Given to you, well, people just plain accept.
Sorry ‘sista’s’ THIS women is a proper helpmate to my husband and equal in rights to any man WITHOUT any surgery at all!
Sing it Jespren!
More proof aborts don’t believe in choices at all. They believe in abortion. They disregard other people’s choices when it comes to whether or not they want to pay for those abortions.
What about all those parents who want vouchers for the education of their children? Does she believe in that right? I want federal money for vouchers now. I am guessing she would be totally against that. Why educate children if you can just kill them?
Excellent points, Joy and Alice! I agree with you all: if abortion is such a PRIVATE choice, then why should the PUBLIC have to pay for it?
And Joy makes another excellent point: If it’s “free” (paid for by taxes and fully funded) probably MORE people will get abortions rather than LESS.