Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Bush apparently unaware of existence of birth control
Scott McClellan fielded questions on November 15th regarding Bu$h's opinion of Roe V Wade.
Specifically, he was asked 7 times if W wants to overturn Roe v Wade. McClellan did his usual song and dance around the question as long as he could, and pointed out that the president is “taking practical steps” to reduce abortions, including banning partial-birth abortions, streamlining adoption, and supporting parental notification laws.
McClellan finally did agree that Bu$h just doesn't yet have enough support in Congress to toss Roe v Wade out the window, but he's working toward that goal.
The abortion issue is another example of Bu$h not understanding and addressing the underlying causes of a problem. His goal is not to reduce the need for abortion, but rather the overall number of abortions. He doesn't care about locking the barn door – he just wants to go after the horses that are already running free.
Look at his solutions: he either wants to legislate to make women jump through hoops (or maybe dig out their coat hangers) to make it more difficult to get access to safe abortions, or to "streamline" adoptions.
Encouraging women to give up their lives for 9 months in order to have a baby for someone else to raise? A wonderful selfless idea, but unless you put a woman up in Trump Towers for 9 months and take care of her family and make sure her 1-3 jobs are there when she returns, and provide the psychological counselling she'll need after giving up a baby she's just spent 9 months carrying, it's really not a “practical” or appealing option for most women. Is he planning to "streamline" pregnancy so that women won't be sick for 3 months, and will be able to do everything they normally can do?
No, these “practical” solutions are just ways for the sanctimonious to make it seem like they actually care about women and not that they are trying to cram the Constitution chock-full of religious dogma.
Why do adults choose to have abortions? Most often because pregancy was unplanned and the parents don't feel capable of supporting a baby financially. (Great article here about the book The Parent Trap which discussing the fact that having kids is the greatest indicator of banktruptcy.)
The 2 most “practical” steps the prez could take if he was serious about reducing the actual need for abortion are:
1) supporting cheap and accessible birth control for all women who want it.
2) reduce the economic burdens on lower and middle income families.
The first would reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, and the second would make it more likely that families would feel that they can support a child.
But the prez's head-in-the-sand policies aren't focusing on these steps. I think it's because he doesn't really care about reducing the need for abortion – he just cares about appeasing his radical Christian base and legislating control over women's bodies.
Or maybe he's just trying to appease his own conscience about all the Iraqis who have gone to their graves due to his foreign policy. Heck, let's save the American embryos in exchange for all the Iraqi children (scroll down for photos) who have been killed. The longer the war keeps up, the more dead and wounded Iraqi children he'll have on his conscience.
¶ 10:50 AM
Scott McClellan fielded questions on November 15th regarding Bu$h's opinion of Roe V Wade.
Specifically, he was asked 7 times if W wants to overturn Roe v Wade. McClellan did his usual song and dance around the question as long as he could, and pointed out that the president is “taking practical steps” to reduce abortions, including banning partial-birth abortions, streamlining adoption, and supporting parental notification laws.
McClellan finally did agree that Bu$h just doesn't yet have enough support in Congress to toss Roe v Wade out the window, but he's working toward that goal.
The abortion issue is another example of Bu$h not understanding and addressing the underlying causes of a problem. His goal is not to reduce the need for abortion, but rather the overall number of abortions. He doesn't care about locking the barn door – he just wants to go after the horses that are already running free.
Look at his solutions: he either wants to legislate to make women jump through hoops (or maybe dig out their coat hangers) to make it more difficult to get access to safe abortions, or to "streamline" adoptions.
Encouraging women to give up their lives for 9 months in order to have a baby for someone else to raise? A wonderful selfless idea, but unless you put a woman up in Trump Towers for 9 months and take care of her family and make sure her 1-3 jobs are there when she returns, and provide the psychological counselling she'll need after giving up a baby she's just spent 9 months carrying, it's really not a “practical” or appealing option for most women. Is he planning to "streamline" pregnancy so that women won't be sick for 3 months, and will be able to do everything they normally can do?
No, these “practical” solutions are just ways for the sanctimonious to make it seem like they actually care about women and not that they are trying to cram the Constitution chock-full of religious dogma.
Why do adults choose to have abortions? Most often because pregancy was unplanned and the parents don't feel capable of supporting a baby financially. (Great article here about the book The Parent Trap which discussing the fact that having kids is the greatest indicator of banktruptcy.)
The 2 most “practical” steps the prez could take if he was serious about reducing the actual need for abortion are:
1) supporting cheap and accessible birth control for all women who want it.
2) reduce the economic burdens on lower and middle income families.
The first would reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, and the second would make it more likely that families would feel that they can support a child.
But the prez's head-in-the-sand policies aren't focusing on these steps. I think it's because he doesn't really care about reducing the need for abortion – he just cares about appeasing his radical Christian base and legislating control over women's bodies.
Or maybe he's just trying to appease his own conscience about all the Iraqis who have gone to their graves due to his foreign policy. Heck, let's save the American embryos in exchange for all the Iraqi children (scroll down for photos) who have been killed. The longer the war keeps up, the more dead and wounded Iraqi children he'll have on his conscience.
¶ 10:50 AM
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