Principles: Abortion

I’ll start with the sticky wicket, and I’ll start with a very simple statement to a very complex issue.

Abortion is wrong.

I think most people will agree with that on some level, even people who support it. There are very few people who would celebrate it as a good and wonderful act.

Abortion is the ending of a human life.

Leftists try desperately to ignore this simple fact. It makes it easier for them to pretend that abortion isn’t wrong, and to dismiss arguments from the right that it is wrong. Anyone who has had or known someone who has had a child knows that a growing fetus is human, and is felt and loved as one. And if it dies, is mourned as one. And as far as I am concerned, ignoring the humanity of an unborn child is one of the worst elements of the abortion debate. To ignore the humanity of a person is to allow one to commit any atrocity without compunction, and the history of various socialisms bear this out.

Sometimes wrong things are necessary.

And here’s the sticky part. Sometimes what is wrong takes back seat to what is necessary. Stealing is wrong, but if you’re starving, you’ll steal to feed your family. Killing people is wrong, but is acceptable in cases of self defense and even celebrated in war. And sometimes, killing an unborn child is what is absolutely necessary, either to protect the life of the mother or the well being and survival of the rest of the family.

Keeping a wrong thing legal makes it less dangerous.

Here’s the libertarian in me coming out. Just because something is wrong does not mean it should be illegal. The leftists are right that keeping abortion illegal makes it safer, as does keeping it available. Because if something is necessary, but inaccessible, then it will be done anyway, and the results can be worse. The left is wrong, however, in equating accessibility with taxpayer funding. The left will assert that refusing to have the Federal government fund abortion is the same as making abortion illegal, and this is absurdly false.

Men should be involved in decisions to abort.

This is another thing the left like to ignore. The father should have input on the decision to abort a child. It is not a choice that is a woman’s alone, and this is very apparent when one considers than while women may choose whether or not to give birth, men bear responsibility for that choice. A man cannot force a woman to carry and give birth to a child he wants but she does not, but a woman can force a man to be financially responsible for eighteen years to a child she wants but he does not.

Keeping abortion legal and accessible does not serve as an endorsement of it.

Keeping things legal and available does not confirm a moral support to them. It affirms that by allowing it in certain circumstances, it can keep them safer for all involved. Nevada has demonstrated this with prostitution. There are numerous studies that suggest the same for drugs. And the right needs to accept that it can issue a moral condemnation without a legal prohibition — the conflation of the two is the right’s biggest problem.

 

Principles

I’ve been ponder a few things lately. Like why am I a Republican. Like what issues I agree with the GOP on and what issues I agree with the Democrats with. Like what the philosophical difference are between the parties, and where I stand if I don’t side with one over the other.

So I’m going to be putting together a few posts on basic principles, positions, and worldviews. What I stand for, what I oppose, and why. And what I’m ready to compromise on, and which lesser evil I will side with. I wouldn’t mind if any of my few remaining readers commented or presented input on what I have to say, but if I’m to re-start this blog, I need to establish a baseline. This is where I stand.

Still Alive …

Yes, I’m still out there. Just been way too busy to put in the time and effort to keep up the blog. I’ve got a Twitter account going, though, and I’ll be tossing out the occasional comments and links now and then. Twitter feed will be displayed at the right, and anyone on Twitter can follow me there: @GOPHeretic

 

Cheers!

Campus Due Process and Sexual Assault

Cases like the Duke Lacrosse case have brought some light to the surprising lack of due process that exists when charges of sexual harassment or assault are brought on a college campus. Trevor Burrus at the Cato Institute discusses this in light of two occurrences: an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (Pay Site)  which tells the tale of a student found guilty of sexual assault by a university even as his accuser was charged with lying to police about the incident, and and order from the Department of Education that effectively lessens the burden of proof required by universities to reach a guilty finding.

Courts Gags Divorced Father

An interesting case highlighted by Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy: a court bans a father from making any comments about his ex-wife in a public forum.

If the father says anything about the mother in public, he could be sent to jail for contempt of court. The order isn’t limited to banning libelous statements (though I think even such a much narrower ban would itself pose constitutional problems, especially under Pennsylvania law), nor is it even limited to statements about minor children (though even that sort of order strikes me as constitutionally impermissible). Rather, the court order categorically orders the removal of a Web site, and prohibits all public statements — factually accurate or not — by one person about another person.

I guess in Pennsylvania the First Amendment doesn’t count for much anymore.

An archived version of the site that started it all can be found here.

Gaffes

I think this gem from Andrew Klavan speaks for itself:

Debt

John Hayward at Human Events has an analysis on the current debate over the federal debt and the debt limit. Put simply, Hayward believes that the huge debt burden carried by our bloated government is an intentional and vital element of maintaining that bloated mass:

High corporate and individual tax rates lead to high unemployment rates.  If you suggest reducing those tax rates to spur private-sector growth and lower unemployment, you will be accused of making the debt situation worse.  That wouldn’t be very intimidating if the national debt was low.  Why not lower those taxes and see if the resulting growth generated more net revenue at the lower rates?

Overregulation

Phillip Greenspan has a personal account of excessive, inefficient, and overly redundant government regulation, and how it impacts his own small business:

Finally, the FAA inspector looked at my random drug testing program to make sure that everything was in place. I’m subject to the same drug testing requirements as United Airlines. I am the drug testing coordinator for our company, so I am responsible for scheduling drug tests and surprising employees when it is their turn to be tested. As it happens, I’m also the only “safety-sensitive employee” subject to drug testing, so basically I’m responsible for periodically surprising myself with a random drug test. As a supervisor, I need to take training so that I can recognize when an employee is on drugs. But I’m also the only employee, so really this is training so that I can figure out if I myself am on drugs. As an employee, I need to take a second training course so that I learn about all of the ways that my employer might surprise me with a random drug test and find out about drug use. But I’m also the employer so really I’m learning about how I might trap myself.

Read the whole thing. H/T Walter Olson at the Cato Institute.

Marriage and Government

Glenn Beck’s trusty radio sidekick Stu has a great take on the governmental approval of same-sex marriage:

Think about your marriage, if you have one, and break it up by percentage.  (Yes, I’m a true romantic.)  Where do you get the value in your marriage?  What is important?

• Love –  Obviously, this is usually number one.
• Faith – Recognition by your church/faith is important to most, but not all.
• Family – Recognition by your family, important to some.
• Kids – Having the most stable unit possible to raise a family, important to many.
• Government – Having faceless bureaucrats hang on to paperwork acknowledging you got married for one or more of the other reasons. Important to….????

For Your Own Good

Jacob Sullum at Reason comments on the government’s new imperative to demand that you purchase a more efficient and cost effective product that costs you 10 times more than the more popular model.

Jenkins says those efficiency standards are clearly justified because the industry supports them and because they benefit consumers, who will save enough money on electricity to more than make up for higher bulb prices. Consumers, of course, have always been free to take advantage of this bargain, and the vast majority have not: According to the Energy Department (PDF), more than 80 percent of residential light sockets were still occupied by standard incandescent bulbs last year. Because consumers are too stupid to perceive the clear advantages of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), LED bulbs, halogen bulbs, or the new, extra-efficient incandescents, they must be forced to buy them. Is it surprising that manufacturers support a law that allows them to foist newer, more expensive products on customers who otherwise would pass them up?