Hmm...

[sathor]

Not sure what I think of this Stupak amendment business.

The idea that abortions were ever covered by health insurance is somewhat sickening - because it's not just the money -you- pay in that is used to fund various types of medical interventions...it is the money that -all- of the insured pay in.

I don't think that's really fair to insured pro-lifers.

I won't be petitioning to stop an amendment unless it tries to take away abortion rights entirely. If you have to foot the bill yourself, that seems entirely acceptable to me, considering it is you and your partner's burden to carry...not society's.

Comments

[sathor.livejournal.com]

I think that's a fine way of looking at it, but everything you've listed other than the military involves the extension of life, whereas abortion is the end of it. Not exactly something that should be disagreeable, especially considering there are alternatives to raising the child yourself.

Yes I am aware the woman has to carry the child for nine months. But it seems a reasonable burden for the greater good.

It's a complicated issue. The problem of rape takes it even further.

[noximist.livejournal.com]

It's definitely complicated, and I do agree with your definition, except that the military is a pretty huge exception to the life-extension rule. After all, it's a huge part of the budget of all but the most podunk governments, so any discussion of cash pools supported by citizens has to involve it in a significant way.

Personally, no, I don't think that forcing a woman to bear a child she doesn't want is a reasonable burden for the greater good. To go back to my earlier example, if you were ever to need a blood transfusion to save your life, would you be willing to forego it and die because a Jehovah's Witness believes your soul would be doomed by the procedure? If they were the dominant religious group in America, that amendment could be removing coverage of transfusions, rather than abortions, and for almost the same underlying reason: the application of one person's spiritual belief on another's body. (I'm ignoring the obvious punishing-the-woman undertone that goes along with many pro-life arguments for the moment.)

What I'm trying to get at is this: people's beliefs are their own, and for many people, a fetus is just a clump of differentiated cells that is completely dependent on its mother's resources for survival. It's a wrenching, terrible decision for anyone to have to make, and it's only the rare, emotionally-damaged exception who makes it without a lot of thought and pain. I just don't believe that anyone has the right to force someone else to be an incubator, not in a free society. :/