8 Comments Add your own

• 1. Nick  |  March 29th, 2006 at 1:51 pm

  

  I’ve never cared much for At 10 ever since they had me on to talk about blogging, took a 20 min interview and cut it down to a single 20 second sound bite, didn’t mention my blog, and then never returned my messages to the producer.

• 2. Administrator  |  March 29th, 2006 at 2:01 pm

  

  Now I have another reason to dislike them…they dissed Nick. ;)

• 3. Max Power  |  March 29th, 2006 at 3:50 pm

  

  It sounds like he did a poor job trying to express what I think is a fairly common feeling amongst pro-choice folks.

  Pro-Life people go to the ends of the earth to protect the life of a fetus. They talk about how it is not the choice of the fetus as to their mother’s position and lament about how the fetus has no say over it’s potential abortion.

  Once the baby is born, however, Pro-Choicers feel there is hypocrisy on the part of Pro-Lifers that it suddenly is the fault of this now-born-fetus (a.k.a. child) that they are the child of a poor, unwed, drug-addicted teenage mother. They see this hypocrisy in the form of constant attacks on social programs that are intended to help single mothers and their children. They see this attack in many forms (cutting foodstamps), but they see all of them as a form of hypocrisy.

  Pro-Lifers seem to be standing around a black and white decision of life versus death for a fetus. Pro-Choicers, however, have a concept of life that extends far beyond delivery.

  At the rate Pro-Lifers (or at least current Republican lawmakers) are going, they seem intent on making sure the daughter of the unwed, drug-addicted teenage mom grows up to herself become an unwed, drug-addicted teenage mom. It would or should make sense that a Pro-Lifer would want to do everything in their power to hold the hand of a child born into that situation to at least get them to the age of 18 on a good footing so that they never even have to make a decision about having an abortion or not. But no, that is dismissed as government welfare and handouts. And that just stinks too much of hypocrisy.

  In summary: I will respect Pro-Lifers more when Pro-Lifers have an agenda of doing everything possible to eliminate abortions. As far as I’m concerned, that isn’t as simple as not allowing a woman to have an abortion. Everything possible includes ensuring ALL kids have healthcare, food, shelter, education, jobs and opportunities so that they never face an abortion choice. I don’t “hate” Pro-Lifers, but I would respect them much more if their concept of “life” extended beyond the womb to at least the age of 18. Most people out there get defensive when called hypocrites… and maybe they personally aren’t and agree with much of this. But please, please point me toward a GOP legislator or congressman they vote for who is pro-life but also wants to do everything they can to help children born into bad situations. I wonder if they would publicly support the Illinois plan of giving all kids access to healthcare that begins this summer.

  And I just thought of one last thing… a lot of Pro-Choicers think it stinks of hypocrisy when outspoken Pro-Lifers are often the same people who abhor the thought of teaching our teenagers how to use a condom. Further respect would be granted to Pro-Lifers if they did everything to eliminate abortions, which would also include a strong advocacy of birth control and condoms. Even the folks way out there who think the Pill is an abortion should be advocating condom use. But instead, we get an administration who won’t give money to a woman’s clinic unless they take an abstinence only approach. Repeated studies have shown that children who take an abstinence pledge are actually more likely to end up with an unwanted pregnancy than those who never took the pledge. More hypocrisy.

  sorry for the super-long comment.

• 4. Administrator  |  March 29th, 2006 at 4:34 pm

  

  Good comment. (I don’t mind long.)

  But I still don’t see how advocating that every human being should have the opportunity to be born somehow makes you responsible to take care of every human being who is born.

  I believe everyone should have the opportunity to have a good job…am I now responsible for guaranteeing that everyone gets one…even if they aren’t willing to do the work?

• 5. Max Power  |  March 30th, 2006 at 5:40 pm

  

  Good question.

  If you are talking strictly about minors under 18, it becomes foggy. Jobs… maybe only an opportunity as you said. But what about healthcare? Minors can’t go out and get it themselves, they’re at the whim of whatever parents they were born unto… so is it their fault? And what about food? We can’t expect 10 year olds to hold a job and buy groceries, but the parents could be poor… so should we maybe support more generous food stamps for families with minors?

• 6. tee bee  |  March 31st, 2006 at 4:14 pm

  

  He attacked pro-life advocates for caring about the unborn, but not taking care of the suffering of the people already here.

  I’m not quite sure what to make of that, since I assume his preferred method of “taking care of” certain groups of people includes doctors and death. My first thought was he’d only be happy if we took a pillow to all the Special Olympics kids, for starters.

• 7. Tim  |  March 31st, 2006 at 11:50 pm

  

  Republicans only care about people until they are born. Matthews make a good argument. Republicans only care about black children when it comes to the issue of school choice. They live as far away from black people as they can and then all sudden start worrying about the education of black children. They are all hypocrites.

• 8. Melinda Omdahl  |  April 1st, 2006 at 10:20 am

  

  Tim- I think that is simplistic – and prejudicial – to say the least. If you are going to make such an attack – back it up with something. That way we can actually look at your arguement and see if it holds water – or the education of black children as the case may be.

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