Karl Rove’s brilliant strategy to win conservative votes was to make an issue about abortion and the three G’s( GGG-Gods, Guns & Gays). If you are a politician against abortions and gays then the conservatives were on board.

The present republican front runners for 2008 have been pro-choice or kind of at some point in their careers. Rudy Gulianii is still pro-choice and pro-gay. Then there is John Mccain who says he is pro-life but has never been gung-ho in fighting for that cause. If he becomes president ( I hope not ) this is not going to be his priority. Mitt Romney flipped his position from being pro-choice and pro-gay to being anti-choice and anti-gay. Why the sudden change? He says he evolved. There are only two reasons why he flipped; one is that he got a brain transplant (filled with conservative ideas ) or he is lying to woo conservative primary voters. We know the former did not happen so he has to be lying.

According to Mr Karl Rove the republican strategy to win elections is to effectively turn out their base ignoring moderates and independents altogether. This base of evangelical Christian conservatives did deliver him success in 2000 & 2004. This base is excited to turn out on issues of abortion and gay-marriage. In the ‘08 cycle I do not know how excited these base voters will be if they have to vote for a pro-choice, pro-gay republican. My instinct is that all the republican front runners will not be able to turn out enough conservatives and thereby are at a tremendous disadvantage. All of them are trying to woo these right wing nuts and therefore the moderates and independents will be turned of by them. This could be a blessing for democrats who don’t have to finesse the abortion issue by saying things like “We want abortions to be rare and legal.”

The republican politicians are being dishonest to the conservative voters by taking these pro-life and anti-gay positions. Most of the politicians except the deluded ones know full well that they cannot legislate their beliefs. However they are very happy to have an issue that can deliver votes forever. Abortion affects women and if we had a referendum on the issue by women voters we could have settled this issue decades ago. The right wing nuts know they will be on the loosing side if they opt for that. For everything else they want the people’s choice to be heard but on the abortion issue they want to make the choice for the whole country. It is intellectually and morally dishonest to go down this path.

Lets say hypothetically that we made abortion illegal. What next? You can go to a drug store to buy a pregnancy test to find out you are pregnant and if you decide against carrying a child you can go to Mexico or Canada to have an abortion. “Abortion vacation” may become a phrase like “procreation vacation” (travel agents do offer this.) My point is that it can’t be enforced.

If a woman who has had an abortion is a criminal then we have to think about whether it is a crime for an expectant mother to neglect her health. There are women in our society who drink, abuse prescription, smoke and use illegal drugs while expecting. Should we lock these women ? In my mind making one of the above wrong choices is much more immoral than having an abortion. This fetus in the womb will be born as an addict or with serious birth defects. Should we allow that? If abortion is kept legal I think women who know they are unfit to carry a child because of their addictions will choose to have an abortion. These people must be then counseled to have fool proof contraception to avoid further pregnancy. That is a way to decrease the number of abortions in society.

Conservative organizations package the abortion issue as a decision that is as easy as flipping a switch for liberals/progressives. The truth is that it is a hard decision for every woman including progressives and I don’t think anyone is particularly proud of it once they do it. Nobody says “I feel great, I had an abortion.” I think everyone knows that. Conservatives just don’t want to accept it. Conservatives know well that abortion is not as rampant as they profess. There are people who make wrong choices about their health and in a free society they have the right. If we are free people then the first step in that freedom is freedom over our own body. Therefore we must let every woman make her own decision. We cannot make judgments on that decision but respect the woman’s right to decide for herself.

Women with cancers and other terminal illnesses do get pregnant; sometimes by choice and sometimes accidentally. Is it criminal for these women to be carrying a child when the odds of a healthy baby are significantly compromised by their own health issues? The conclusion is that criminalizing abortion has a lot of pitfalls; it is like opening a can of worms and politicians know that. They just want the issue to be alive every election cycle so as to deceive voters into thinking they are going to be one step closer to overturning Roe v Vade.

Abortion is a serious issue and I don’t think there is any one who takes it lightly. No parent says to their daughter “It’s fine even if you get pregnant. You can have an abortion.” Everyone with some common sense knows this fact. There must be enough education so that people take the right steps to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

Conservatives should understand that no politician can legislate their belief system. They have to uphold their beliefs for themselves and advocate it to people with similar values. Thats it. We must understand that this a free country where we all have rights. These rights encompass rights over our own body. What the conservatives are saying is “Women have rights over their bodies until they conceive. Once you are carrying the government suspends your rights.” This is what they are striving for. Right over our body allows us to smoke, drink, eat too much, etc. There are health risks associated with these activities and only our awareness and free will to care for ourselves prevents us from engaging in certain risky behaviors. A pregnant woman has the same right to choose whether she wants a child or not at the point in her life. This life which the pro-lifers want to protect is within the confines of a woman’s body; it would not exist or thrive without the woman being willing to carry the child. If the woman makes a willing choice to carry, then the baby born has a good chance of a healthy life. If not the prospect does not look good for the unborn baby. Most women choose to nurture. It is encoded in our DNA. There are some who choose abortion for their own financial/emotional/physical reasons. A woman must be free to make that choice in a democratic society.

If we took the yearly statistics of the number of births and the number of abortions we would all understand that number of abortions pales in comparison to the number of births. If people take the time to carefully examine the issue they would conclude that it is a non-issue politically. On the moral and religious fronts it is probably debatable.

For the ‘08 presidential race on the republican side I am guessing “abortion” is off the menu for the front runners. This is a good thing. The only reason for the pro-choice people to court the democrats is to counter the pro-life republicans. If abortion is not an issue for republicans then the democrats can untangle themselves from the pro-choice lobby. It will be refreshing if we can get this wedge issue of the table. People deserve better. The politicians must be talking about the issues that matter. People must be voting on policy and not on whether a politician shares their religious beliefs. Religion must be kept out of the public square and I hope the 2008 election cycle will throw out topics like abortion and gay marriage from the political discourse for good.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 15th, 2007 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Politics, 2008 Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.