Conservative states regulate abortions. Not guns.
A proposed set of regulations for gun purchases has been circulating on Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail.
It calls out government inconsistency and hypocrisy.
How about we treat every young man who wants to buy a gun like every woman who wants to get an abortion--mandatory 48-hour waiting period, parental permission, a note from his doctor proving he understands what he's about to do, a video he has to watch about the effects of gun violence, and an ultrasound wand up the ass (just because). Let's close down all but one gun shop in every state and make him travel hundreds of miles, take time off work, and him stay overnight in a strange town to get a gun. Make him walk though a gauntlet of people holding photos of loved ones who were shot to death, people who call him a murderer and urge him not to buy a gun.
Conservative legislatures in red states have put into place strict laws to regulate abortion. They make getting a gun easy. It is hypocritical in the eyes of advocates of abortion rights and gun regulation. There are two premises underlying the thinking of most supporters of abortion rights: Reproduction is a personal decision and the fertilized egg/zygote/embryo/fetus is not yet human. It isn't murder.
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| Abraham and Isaac |
There is a school of thought--expressed in the Justice Alito draft--that abortion is uniquely different from other privacy rights because it involves taking a life. Stories in Western civilization's oldest literature are put into motion by the act of a god requiring a parent to murder their child. In Genesis God demanded Abraham sacrifice his oldest son, Isaac, to prove his loyalty. In the Iliad the Greek goddess Artemis demanded Agamemnon sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia as the price of freeing the Greek ships to go off to war with Troy. The Bible positioned God's demand as that greatest of possible tests for Abraham. In the Iliad, the sacrifice/murder set off a series of fratricides, matricides, and patricides. Agamemnon's wife plotted her revenge for a decade. We cringe from the horror of murdering our child. We understand it as a deep moral offense.
Anti-abortion ideology treats abortions as murder. From that viewpoint the hypocrisy rests primarily with abortion supporters who act shocked at murder of innocent life of schoolchildren with guns, but ignore the lives of the aborted souls.
This position is expressed by a commenter to this blog who uses the name "Curt Ankerberg," the same name as a Medford-area political activist.
MORE THAN 800,000 babies are killed annually in America due to abortions. 800,000!! Think about it! More than 200 late-term abortions are performed in Oregon annually. That means they are killing 200 fetuses annually in Oregon that are more than 5 months along. That's pretty gruesome. . . . One Hundred Times more children are killed by abortions than shot by guns. I'm not trying to discount gun shootings, but compared to abortions, they are minimal in a population of 330 million people.
There is no scientific or objective solution. Fertilization and the growth of a fertilized egg is a process and continuum. The Catholic Church has put a stake in the ground, saying the fertilized egg has a human soul. There are liberal Catholics--liberal Christians of all kinds--dedicated to concern for "the least of these brothers of mine," who include the unborn among the most vulnerable needing the protection of a compassionate state. Yet a focus on a woman's rights--not the joint rights of mother and fetus--may be the politically viable way for Democrats to frame the issue. It is the current Democratic strategy and policy.
It may be a flawed path. It pleases a certain kind of feminist, but it doesn't sit well with everyone. That thing inside the pregnant woman is something sacred in the views of many. It isn't just patriarchal domineering chauvinist men who think that, although, yes, certainly plenty of them. Lots of women feel that way, too.
7 comments:
God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son.”
Abe said, “Man, you must be puttin' me on.”
God said, “No.”
Abe said, “What?”
God said, “You can do what you want to but
The next time you see me comin' you better run.”
Abe said, “Where you want this killin' done?"
God said, “Out on Highway 61.
It's in America, so use a gun."
Peter....thanks for the plug! I am a Medford-area political activist, and proud of it.
There's a big difference between purchasing a gun and getting an abortion. When someone has an abortion, then the death of a fetus is guaranteed to happen. I purchased all three of my guns (including an AR15) more than 10 years ago, and NO death has ever occurred from that event. Having guns doesn't guarantee death, while abortions do guarantee death. When a woman has an abortion, she's not removing a "tumor" from her body. She's removing a separate life which has different DNA than she has.
Guns don't guarantee death. I take death seriously. Years ago (in the 70's), when I was in my 20's, I worked in a grocery store in a bad area of LA, and I personally witnessed one of my co-workers get shot in the head twice and killed by a gun from a botched robbery. The gun didn't do the killing. The bad guy (a gangster) did. The bad guy went to prison. The gun didn't.
We live in an era where people don't want to take responsibility for their actions. Young people want to have sex because it's fun, yet they don't want to face the ramifications of their actions, and they want the easy way out, which is by eliminating a baby.
Years ago, the government got people to quit smoking by showing people repulsive photos of a smoker's black and brown lung. Perhaps today people need to see photos of an abortion in order to have the same effect. It's murder no matter what you call it.
Curt Ankerberg
Medford, OR
Note from Peter Sage
The comment above may be from a locally-known frequent candidate for political office who is named Curt Ankerberg. DO NOT ASSUME THAT A COMMENT PURPORTING TO BE FROM "CURT ANKERBERG" IS IN FACT A LETTER FROM A PERSON LOCALLY KNOWS AS CURT ANKERBERG. Instead, it may be from someone impersonating him and using his name.
I have no way to confirm the the identity of the authors of comments submitted here. I receive many comments purported to come from well-known people. I delete them if they seem improbable or they contain obscenity or slanderous accusations. I will publish them if, in my judgement, they seem like reasonable expressions of opinion.
I consider it possible that the comments are by the same person who is a former Medford-area political candidate, but there is reason for doubt, based on content and style.
Peter Sage
God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe say, "Man, you must be puttin’ me on"
God say, "No". Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
next time you see me comin' you better run"
Abe say, "Where do you want this killin’ done?"
God say, "Out on Highway 61".
Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited
I’ve always thought that when God told Abraham he was going to make the Jews “The Chosen People,” Abe should have asked, “Chosen for what?” before he signed up.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
Comparing abortion to mowing down school children with assault weapons is pretty bizarre, but without all the angry expletives and name-calling, it's hard to believe that Curt is making the comment.
At least he seems to have stopped being so Curt with Peter…
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