Too moderate for my own good, it seems.

[bladespark]

I have a hard time taking a stand on a lot of issues. I have opinions, but... I see both sides of a lot of things, and I just don't care on a lot of other things. And it feels futile most of the time. I'm just me. I will never have a career in politics. If I make a huge difference, it will be on a individual basis, not on a larger level. And mostly I'm fine with that. Some people go out on grand ethical crusades, some people have to stay home and see to the more mundane stuff.

But when I do have an opinion, it's generally a pretty middle of the line one. And you know what that gets you these days? It gets you spat on by both sides, mostly.

Which is a big part of the reason why I don't usually discuss political issues. No matter who I'm talking to, we're going to disagree somewhere, and if I put it out in public, I have this paranoid certainty that I'm going to get flak from left and right.



The other reason why I don't discuss it much is because the solutions I think of as ideal are impossible. Ideally we'd solve the problem of abortion by not having anybody get unintentionally pregnant. Heck, ideally you wouldn't be able to have kids at all until you prove you can actually parent. And if somebody can tell me how to actually pull that one off, well... *shrugs* not going to happen, unfortunately. So even though I think that last thing we need is people having babies from irresponsible sex, I also don't think that it's right to kill a potential human being just because you fooled around. You did something stupid, you got pregnant, you're now responsible for it, and you should have the kid and see that it's taken care of. But the kind of person who has an irresponsible pregnancy isn't going to be a responsible parent terribly often. (Rape is a whole different issue, mind...) It's just this nasty tangle. You've got a child who would be better off not concieved at all. But you can't "unconcieve" it, so... so what? It's there now. Killing it is wrong. Bringing it into the world into a life where it's not wanted, nor loved is wrong. You've got no right choices here. Which is why I say ideally we'd prevent it from happening at all. But no ammount of good sex ed is going to overcome the stupidity of some people and it's still going to happen.

So here I am, left with no opinion. I don't like abortion. I hate the very idea. And yet... can you see my dillemma? I can always see both sides of something. I mean, if I have to come down on this issue, in a broad sense, I know where I come down. If it's "ban all abortions, everywhere, in all circumstances" vs. "legalize all abortions, however unneccessary," I have to come down on legalization. And that makes me squirm. I hate the idea that my "pro-choice" vote might enable some idiot to get out of the consequences of her own stupid actions, at the expense of a life. The way I /want/ things to be is that they wouldn't be needed at all. *sighs*

Bleah. If politics weren't so freaking polarized things would be much easier. But either you're a murdering abortionist who kills third trimester babies, or you're a raving anti-abortionist who makes rape victims keep their pregnancies. They won't let you have the middle ground anymore.


Apparently Yin gets to be spokesperson for the political arguments in my head... (Which is a whole 'nother topic there. I think I'm seeing both sides of things because I've got enough voices in there to have differing opinions on everything.)

Comments

[malakim2099.livejournal.com]

Yin is apporpriate for political discussions in this day and age, sorry to say.

I'm pretty sure my own views on such things wouldn't surprise many.

[silveradept]

Well, there is a middle ground, it's just that the shouting of the lunatics prevents it from being heard. Most people take a sensible position of "rapes should not have to carry, kids fooling around should get a taste of consequences, especially with as many ways of contraception as we have." (In my opinion, by the way, we should teach how to use contraception effectively in schools, too.) Until there is a 100% effective birth control method, we're going to have these debates. Once we get the supereffective patch or implant, then the abortion debate will probably fade away and the "do we mandate every girl/guy have one of these or let them choose?"

[wtftastic.livejournal.com]

I appriciate being on the middle ground myself.

Its just hard to do

[mavikfelna.livejournal.com]

You aren't the only one that suffers from the middle ground thinking.

Now I have strong oppinions and I want to get into politics but it's mostly because I can no longer trust the big parties to do the right or sensible thing and, dang it, someone needs to inject a bit of reality into politics.

In the case of abortion, I am pro-choice for the same reasons you are, not because I like the idea of abortion in any way but because the total ban will cause even more problems. I am in favor of more liberal adoption laws and would love to see that as a more viable alternative.

Anyway, thanks for letting Yin out for a bit and sharing your thoughts.

--Mav

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Abortion is this interesting sliding scale. On one end, we have "contraception is bad" and "The morning after pill is murder". On the other, there's the theoretical position that all abortions should be allowed. (Almost no one agrees with this, it's always tempered at least by time -- all abortions before the last trimester are allowed.)

A lot of it hinges on how one defines an independant human life or even potential independant human life and various criteria are proposed. A gamete is *potential* life. A zygote is the smallest discrete unit of said life. A rapidly dividing blastocyst after implantation (usually the definition of pregnant) indicates that said life is being nourished and is potentially viable. Then the fuzzy stuff comes into play, when the brain stem develops, when the heart develops, when the fetus is recognizably human, when the "soul" develops...

The other half of the equation is why the woman is having the abortion (and using this scale pretty much says that life begins after the last possible date for an abortion): rape, accidental conception (condom broke), carelessness, drug addiction, genetics (the baby has a devistating and terrible genetic disease), AIDS or other transmitted diseases, risk to mother's own health.

It always weirds me out when people combine scales. I understand it, of course, but you can't argue that the 2nd trimester fetus is an independant human life but then say "but it's OK to kill it if the mother was raped". If you're affording the same rights to the child as to another human being, does rape excuse murder of an innocent? It's much harder to argue "while it's not murder to abort the fetus after the 2nd trimester, the mother shouldn't take such a decision lightly and the law should reflect that."

So, it's very difficult to find a position that's internally consistent that isn't one of the extremes. You're not alone out there.

Ah, politics.

[poncelet.livejournal.com]

As a male, I come in on an interesting side of the debate. Since I can't carry children, I'm pretty much relegated to two points of view. One, I get to take a side on those cases where a woman decides to get an abortion when a man doesn't want her to. All I can say about that one is that I hope I'm never put in that position. :-)

The other issue has to do with what is good for society. I read lots of Literature (yes, with a capital L) in my time in college dealing with what happened when abortions were illegal in the US. There were examples of benign behavior, like whole planeloads of nothing but female passengers bound for England -- where abortions were still legal. Then there were the really scary scenes, where women, desperate for an abortion, would try to perform it on themselves with whatever skinny metal implements they could fashion.

My opinion is that making it illegal creates an atmosphere where women will mutilate and kill themselves. Keeping it legal allows for them to get to a doctor and at least survive the process. Regardless of my feelings on the morality of the act, I have to side on the pro-choicers.

A lot of politics is like that. What I love about living in a modern era is that we can look back at history and art and get a feel for the human cost of a particular issue, because someone, somewhere has had to live in a land where something was against the law. :-)

Mark