A noob at DUmmyland, a site where democrats post, finds a way to make all kinds of friends at DU.
CthulhusEvilCousin (91 posts)
Being pro-life doesn’t make me any less of a lefty
Being pro-life doesn’t make me any less of a lefty
Abortion is one of those rare political issues on which left and right seem to have swapped ideologies.
BY MEHDI HASAN PUBLISHED 11 OCTOBER 2012
Listening to fellow pundits on the left react with rage and disbelief to the support by the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, for halving the abortion time limit to 12 weeks, I was reminded of the late Christopher Hitchens. “nyone who has ever seen a sonogram or has spent even an hour with a textbook on embryology knows that emotions are not the deciding factor ,†wrote the Hitch in his column for the Nation magazine in April 1989. “In order to terminate a pregnancy, you have to still a heartbeat, switch off a developing brain . . . break some bones and rupture some organs.â€
It is often assumed that the great contrarian’s break with the liberal left came over Iraq in 2003. His self-professed pro-life position, however, had provoked howls of anguish in progressive circles 14 years earlier. It has long been taken as axiomatic that in order to be left-wing you must be pro-choice. Yet Hitchens’s reasoning was not just solid but solidly left-wing. It was a pity, he noted, that the “majority of feminists and their allies have stuck to the dead ground of ‘Me Decade’ possessive individualism, an ideology that has more in common than it admits with the prehistoric right, which it claims to oppose but has in fact encouragedâ€.
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Rest at link: http://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/lifestyle/2012/10/being-pro-life-doesnt-make-me-any-less-lefty
In my personal opinion, making contraception easily available and affordable to those most likely to have an abortion would solve things much faster. The Republican party has been running on a pro-life platform for decades, but beyond trying to get pro-life judges in (and generally failing) they have no ideas on how to accomplish their own goals besides random legislation here or there that doesn't really tackle things. It is more of an issue they use to display how holy they are, and to get people pissed off and ready to vote against the heathens on the left. A smart Democratic candidate can steal some of this vote by demonstrating the effectiveness of progressive policies in reducing abortion rates and by expressing pro-life positions.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021598057msongs (27,740 posts)
1. pro life is a right wing frame nt
No pro life is an accurate description. Pro choice is a left wing frame, instead of calling it what it is, you say choice. The funny part is the same woman you say you trust to decide whether to kill her unborn child or not, can not be trusted with her salt intake, the size of her soda and popcorn at the movies, or what kind of health insurance she needs.
Permanut (829 posts)
3. It's not pro-life, it's anti-choice..
Everyone I've ever met is "pro-life", at least in principal. That is to say, there is no one I can think of who is the opposite, who is "anti-life". Furthermore, I've never met anyone who was "pro-abortion".
DU is full of pro abortion people.
txdemsftw (23 posts)
33. Agree..
Just because I would not have an abortion does not mean I should make that choice for anybody else. Neither should the Govt. Period.
I wouldn't murder a toddler, so should I make that choice for someone else? Or should I take the same cop out position that you take on abortion?
Mme. Defarge (2,778 posts)
9. Thank you!
"Choice" is a euphemism for abortion. Economic consumerism and social consumerism, or "choice", are flip sides of the same coin. Both lead to grotesque excesses, and economic and social harm.
Yeah can't have people with the freedom to choose anything as far as economics, but somehow the choice to murder the unborn is a sacred right.
PeaceNikki (17,645 posts)
20. No thank you. "Choice" is not a ****ing euphemism. It's a choice.
And abortion is a legal medical procedure. Abortion is a moral and positive choice that liberates women, saves lives, and protects families.
A positive choice?
hfojvt (29,537 posts)
29. many people on the left though
want to use government to tell other people to do or not do all kinds of things.
I don't think the line dividing progressive from non-progressive is based on telling other people what to do. That's more like libertarian and non-libertarian.
Yep the left wants to control every aspect of our lives, what we drive, what we eat, how much money we can have, how much salt and sugar we can consume, the only freedoms that the left supports is the freedom to have sex with whomever you want whenever you want and to kill the offspring if that sex results in pregnancy.
coalition_unwilling (12,630 posts)
15. The phrase 'pro-Life' is a right-wing frame and you're a troll - n/t
StarryNite (2,506 posts)
16. Pro Life....offensive way to phrase it....
The ones of us that are Pro Choice are not Pro Death.
When you support a choice that results in death, then yes you are pro death.
