Texas just passed a law which outlaws almost all abortions and worse yet, has essentially deputized the citizenry to enforce the law. It caused me to think more about this whole ‘rights’ issue and I find it very confusing. I would guess that there is a very large overlap between the people who are very anti-mask and the people who are anti-abortion. Both of these issues seem to be hallmarks of most conservatives/Republicans. In many of the anti-mask rallies across the United States you see signs that say “My body, my right”. However, these same people refuse to extend the same right to a woman to make decisions about her own reproductive health. How the hell does that make any sense at all? If people insist that they have the ‘right’ to wear a mask or not, or they have the right to get a vaccination or not, because it is their body and then turn around and dictate to all women how they will manage their own bodies with respect to their reproductive health, that is the height of hypocrisy. And hypocrisy seems to be becoming the hallmark of the Republican party.
Last year I responded to a letter in the Bozeman Chronicle about this issue. The points I brought up then are still as relevant now. It’s easy to throw up your arms and say that you are against abortion. It is a completely different issue to come up with a realistic and workable solution to the very real problem of what to do with all of the babies that the pro-life crowd are insisting being carried to term. Perhaps all of the people who are so adamantly pro-life and insist the almost all abortions should be outlawed would be willing to sign up to adopt enough children to close the gap. There are about 600,000 abortions in this country every year. There are about 140,000 adoptions a year. Do the friggin’ math!!
I can’t believe there is anyone who would be naïve enough to believe that if abortion is made illegal, people will stop having sex and there will not continue to be thousands upon thousands of unplanned pregnancies. Abstinence has not worked for thousands of years. To make matters even worse, many of the same people who want to outlaw abortions are the same people who want to cut social services and have no universal healthcare. How the hell is this supposed to work?
The other fact that seems to be totally overlooked is the fact that 2/3 of Americans do not want Roe v. Wade overturned and want to continue to allow women access to abortions. So, you have a very vocal minority forcing an unpopular policy onto a population that does not support it. This was tried once before during Prohibition. That turned out to be a disaster and these continued efforts to restrict abortions and/or overturn Roe v. Wade will suffer the same fate. It will be a disaster unless someone can construct an endgame solution that takes into account the very real gap between the number of abortions and the number of adoptions. If that doesn’t exist – disaster is inevitable.
It doesn’t matter whether you personally believe in abortions or not. The simple fact is we have to enact policies based upon the real world and real facts. Policies implemented based upon emotion that have no clear answer to real world issues will inevitably cause more problems than they purport to solve.
Texas also joined Montana in passing a law to allow virtually anyone to carry a concealed weapon without a permit. They have also enacted the most restrictive voting rights act in the country. Perhaps we should have allowed Texas to secede after all. And then Governor Abbott can build a wall around the whole damned state and all Texans can exercise their ‘rights’ to their hearts content – of course, only those rights that the Republican politicians and Governor Abbott wish to bestow upon the serfs in their kingdom.
My letter to the Chronicle follows.
“Mr. Arnone states in his most recent letter, “Denying life to a newborn is not a Montana value.” It should read, “Denying life to a newborn is not MY value.” I am a resident of Montana and I resent the fact that Mr. Arnone believes he speaks for me – he doesn’t. Furthermore, in previous letters, Mr. Arnone has talked about the need for “less government.” And yet, he wants the government to be able to intrude on these types of personal decisions. If less government is better – then let’s be consistent. It’s easy to throw up your arms and state that you’re ‘personally’ against abortion. So, let’s look at the data. Every year there are about 600,0001 (plus or minus) abortions in this country. Historically there are, on average, 140,0002 adoptions per year. So, what happens to the roughly 450,000 babies that Mr. Arnone and others insist be carried to term? It is unrealistic to think there will be 450,000 more adoptions/year. The data since 1940 do not support that. Or, shall we have the US Dept of Babies? Less government? Oh, yeah, that won’t work. People will not stop having sex – hasn’t happened in thousands of years. Wealthy and upper middle-class women will simply go out of the country. So, you are left with a whole population of women, who can’t afford to have babies, who will either go further into poverty or get back-alley abortions (which will result in some women dying and apparently Mr. Arnone doesn’t care about them!). So, until Mr. Arnone can offer a REALISTIC solution, I suggest that he not attempt to speak for me about such personal decisions. It is not a ‘Montana’ value. A real ‘Montana’ value is to respect everyone’s right to live their life and make their own decisions – period!”