Becasue what you are unable to grasp is that there are other approaches and people that don't fit your atempt to dismiss them as fundamentalists, extremists, or racist in the pro-life movement. Your essay focused only on the most negative of the pro-life movement and nothing more, it certainly wasn't an unbiased account.
What other "approaches"? Your arguments are the same as a fundamentalists, because that's what the core of the movement is. It is based on religious determinism, dominionism, and fundamentalism.
You may not come from a religious standpoint, but all of the arguments were invented by them.
I don't focus on the negative or the positive. I focus on what's real and what I see before my very eyes. If you think that's negative, then oh well, I can't help you. And frankly, I don't see what's good in a movement, that is based solely on a philosophy, that wants to take away the rights of others.
By the way, it's obvious you didn't read my post fully. You must have stopped at the second paragraph and didn't read on. You conveniently glossed over a lot of good facts that I posted. I have lost a lot of respect for you because of this, since I have read every single one of your posts from top to bottom before commenting.
You value a womens right to choose whether she has an abortion or not. I get that, I understand the logic, I just don't put a higher value on the right to choose than the right to life.
I actually have no problem with your belief. As I mentioned earlier, I think our two perspectives can co-exist, but the difference between you and I is that you don't want me to have the right to determine these questions for myself. You want your philosophy to reign supreme and override all others. This is what I cannot allow.
The issue of personhood is extremely relevant because the lack of personhood is fundamental to the laws sactioning of abortion. The issue of personhood can not be soley substantiated by biology, but does indeed have a philosophical aspect. Your steadfast denial of all things religious is misplaced because religion is a factor in the philosophical argument whether you want to admit it or not. While I'm not very religious, and do beleive in the necessisity of separatio church and state, I don't beleive the government has the right to summarily dismiss anything associated with religion in the forming of it's laws. Religion is but one of many inlfuences that affect the forming of a person's morality. Being anti-religious also has an impact on morality in those that insist on ignoring or dismissing any morality that can in any way be associated with a religion or spiritual source.
I actually don't disagree. Religion can be included under philosophy, and it's part of the culture that determines law; but what it doesn't determine is civil rights. You think I am against the pro-life movement because it is largely religious. Actually, I am against the pro-life movement because it is trying to override my right to determine my own philosophy and what the matter means to me.
You and I are EQUAL in the eyes of the law, so why does your choice get to override my choice? Why should your philosophy be more important than mine? Why do your spiritual beliefs on the fetus get to cancel out mine?
This is my problem with you. You can't just have peace with your own beliefs, you want to take away my choice as well, all based on your SUBJECTIVE interpretation, which is equally as subjective as mine. Maybe you finally understand what I'm trying to say now, but frankly I don't think you do. Your beliefs, separated from the politics, are not wrong anymore than mine are wrong.
It's when you become political and try to infringe on my choices that I have a problem with you. I have seen nothing in the pro-life philosophy that offers true absolutism in answering these questions that would prompt me to agree with making those answers into laws. It is just one belief in a sea of many.
America is considered one of the most religious of all developed nations, and whether you like it or not, you have to deal with the fact the a great majority of Americans are to some level religious. They deserve a voice in the running of the country as well.
Let's try this again... maybe this time you'll understand.
That's true, but religion doesn't determine civil rights. It never has, and it never will. In fact, religion has been fighting against the civil rights movement since the days of slavery and women's suffrage. There are always religious people coming out of the woodwork with quotes from the Bible every time society begins to progress to a new point that they are uncomfortable with. Not to mention, there are evangelical leaders who are vying for personal and political power by manipulating the religious values of these issues to get support. (Abortion is one issue.) Conservativism in general wants to slow social progress, and I actually think this force is sometimes necessary in society to prevent changes from unfolding too rapidly, but when it comes to civil rights it has been nothing but corrosive.
So you may take offense to me saying that the southern U.S., the usual bastion of anti-civil rights activism, has proven itself to be misogynist, racist, and homophobic in almost every civil rights issue, but that is simply the honest reality.
If we left it up to religion to determine rights, blacks would still be slaves, women would not be autonomous persons and would be stuck in the kitchen still, gays would still be executed or put into asylums, and of course, women would have zero right to abort under law. This is what religious Dominionism demands... it demands the rule of law under God, not under the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights. How do I know this? Because at every step of the way, the Dominionist Christian community has been the
most vocal of all groups at trying to silence the rights movements.
This is what you're not understanding. Separation of Church and State means secular values determine civil rights. It's why the mob lost in Prop 8 in California, even though the majority (who were religious) voted to strike down a right for gays. The courts and legislature determine rights, and they have to balance forward progression of rights against the constitution and the needs of society. In doing so, they weigh your philosophical values against others. Yours does not pre-dominate. This is why Roe v Wade sided with privacy. A woman's right to choose has to be based on her culture, beliefs, and what is good for her.
I respect that religious people feel they have found the answer to what abortion is and what fetal personhood is, but you
cannot deny that these answers are
subjective and philosophical. You claim absolutism, but there is nothing absolute about your belief. You have freedom of religion so you can believe what you want, but your rights stop with you.
What I want for myself and my children is the right to determine what these spiritual and philosophy questions mean to me, and that is frankly none of your business. I am an equal individual just as you are.
This is why... if you don't agree with abortion, then DON'T have one. It's just that simple.
