A good essay. Alternet features several essays on this topic.

Progressive Pat <"I disagree, the State should never be able to force religious people to participate in terminating human life, which is what the HHS ruling would do, as understood by Catholics."

I hated having to hold down Jewish babies (and any other baby) while they had their foreskins cut off without the use of anaesthetic ... all in the name of religion.
I had to hold my tongue when delivering babies of women who had had their genitals mutilated according to their religious/paternalistic customs.

I also didn't like being in theatre when terminations were attended, even though I was not religious.
Nobody likes to do this.

However, I knew what was expected of me when I became a nurse, as we had to agree to attend to the needs of ALL people, regardless of race, colour, gender, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity.

If you are unable to agree to attend to ALL the legal healthcare needs of ALL patients, then you should not choose a medical profession as a career, or you should choose to work at a religious hospital that does not carry out abortions.

Jocelynne, you say, “Thus at every stage of her reproductive cycle the woman’s right to personhood is, it seems, to be subjugated to ‘rights’ of reproductive material which is part of her own body”.

Clearly you disagree with this, so that means you must hold that the full-term child, moments before birth is just “reproductive material” and that if the mother should choose to end the child’s life at that point that should be permissible and unproblematic.

Incredible.

Thankfully, the Republican Party in the USA is playing the lowest denominator card in its pre-selection games. When a contender is finally picked it will then move away from the hard-line abortion stance and attempt to attract the more moderate voter.

This is and has been their modus operandi for a while. The people running the Rep Party know that beating (attempting to) Barrack Obama will not happen with the antiquated views being expressed presently. The Rep Party may be laced with lashings of stupidity but not that much.

Abortion is seen by the ‘pro-life’ camp as a moral bad. They would force this position onto all women.

Abortion is seen by the pro-choice camp as morally neutral. They are allowing women to make the choice.

As there are two distinct ways of viewing abortion, claiming moral authority on one way by force is arrogance leading to the distortion of democracy.

‘Pro-lifers are actually calling everyone who does not agree with their views, without justification, stupid.

If ‘pro-lifers’ cannot prove the existence of this particular god and they cannot, they have no right to impose their present-day arbitrary interpretation of what they think it wants and allow the effects of this delusion to impact negatively on others.

It really is simple. If you don’t want to have an abortion, then don’t.

David

@ David, I think arguing for the protection of the most innocent is an example of the best in us and is a winning stance in the general election. The tide has turned, conservatives have started investigating organisations like Planned Parenthood and revealing to the public the disregard they have for the unborn, turning off many independents.

Also, gay marriage has been rejected 31 out of 31 times it has been put to a vote in US states - including liberal bastions California and Maine. Supporting traditional marriage is a winner for republicans.

Republicans lose votes when they talk about cutting medicare and other handout programs, even if it is necessary to prevent Greek-style riots from occurring in a few years. The GOP don't lose on social issues as their values are intrinsically beneficial to society.

For example, the liberal republican Goldwater gets annihilated by Johnson winning 6 of the 50 states, and the social conservative Reagan wins 49 of the 50 States.

@progressive pat,

You are missing the point. It doesn’t matter the split in those for or against abortion, what does matter is the forcing of one view onto others.

If one concedes that abortion should be illegal, then, they are forcing women to seek illegal means because history is very clear that abortion will still happen. This is not a justification, it is a real consequence.

If one is going to force women to not have an abortion the grounds have to be empirically justified. They are not. Emotional grounds, because abortion has no precedent in human behaviour is not good enough reason. It is saying, ‘I know better than you’, when that only pertains to you.

Would you vote for abortion to be illegal?

And if the answer is yes, could you answer the questions I posed for runner here http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13262#229234

David