Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Crazy Crap / Hargrove It's About Sex, Not Murder, For the Anti-Abortion Crowd
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 5:17 AM
As Obama approaches a sensible middle-road -- reducing the need for abortions -- he's catching some silly opposition to the packaging of the deal. See, to do this we need some actual, honest-to-God sex education, not this unrealistic abstinence drivel. But the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships says it'll be forced to oppose this because they oppose federal dollars for contraception and comprehensive sex education, according to U.S. News & World Report.
So, there you have it. A method that would actually be successful in reducing the numbers of unwanted pregnancies and, in effect, the number of abortions is rejected by the anti-abortion-ers because they're squeamish about sex. If you're a thinking person, I don't need to point out how completely retarded this is (which I just did).
This is what Obama gets for trying to find common ground with religious wackos who won't give an inch because of their pent up, dysfunctional hang-ups with sex.
Comments (8)
Showing 1-8 of 8
When does human life begin? Birth? Then killing a pregnant woman can't be double murder. Tax and insurance dollars shouldn't be used to save babies in the womb.
We can't have it both ways.
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Brantley, this is about as grotesque, reductio ad absurdem characterization of the anti-abortion movement as you'd find among that subset of the anti-abortion crowd who view all pro-choice people as genocidal killers. Yes, there are people on the anti-abortion side who refuse to look for even the most reasonable middle ground (just as there are on the pro choice side). But posting blanket, nutty statements like yours -- and spare me the "it's only a blog" protest -- undercut your credibility when you turn around and try to do something more in the vein of serious journalism.
This kind of crap just makes the Scene look bad.
Oh, please, Bubbadog. Telling the truth is now grotesque? Then why isn't the anti-abortion crowd pissed off that the White House Faith Based Partnership is going to oppose this?
Because what Hargrove says is true--they don't think you should be using birth control, either. There is no sane common ground with these folks and they're the representatives of the anti-abortion movement.
If they don't speak for y'all, you need to change leaders.
Until then, don't blame Hargrove for speaking the truth.
Bubbadog, this is what's actually happening. I don't see what the problem is, unless you dislike the truth. And in this case, yeah, the truth sucks.
Obama is trying to find the middle ground with these people, and they're rejecting that on ridiculous grounds. So, again, what's the problem here, other than the fact that the people making decisions for the anti-abortion crowd are making you all look bad?
Aunt B:
My own views on the way to reduce abortions are much closer to Obama's. A complete ban would just drive it all back underground -- dangerously -- and would be no more effective than Prohibition. Personally, I think the people who oppose sex education (when abstinence-only demonstrably doesn't work) and who oppose contraceptives are nuts. And for these folks, as I said above, there truly is no compromise.
The part of Mr. Hargrove's post I objected to is the blatant generalization in his first paragraph: that pro-lifers aren't sincere in their profession that abortion is murder and that what they really don't like are reproduction and rights.
You can be firmly pro-choice and still recognize that the anti-abortion movement is nowhere close to monolithic. If you're even halfway objective, you don't have to spend much time talking to these people (or arguing with them, as I often have) to figure out that many if not most DO sincerely believe that abortion represents the taking of a life. Many of them honestly see themselves as latter-day abolitionists whom most of the rest of the country will one day come to view as having been right.
You don't have to agree with their prescriptions on what to do about abortion -- you can think many of those Rxs are loopy, as I do -- to recognize the sincerity of their position behind their ideas. And when you scratch below the surface, you find they don't even all share the same prescriptions. The most extreme would ban all abortions, even in cases of rape/incest and even if the mother's health is at stake. Others would carve out exceptions at various points along the spectrum, and far from all (even among Catholics) believe that contraception and sex education are wrong.
So for Mr. Hargrove to write a first paragraph as he did betrays either a shocking ignorance or a willful misrepresentation -- neither of which is appropriate for someone who wants to be taken seriously beyond the "vile orangutanguage" (in Ogden Nash's phrase) of the blogosphere.
I don't think it's a misrepresentation at all, Bubba. Nor is it ignorance. These are the people who represent your movement. This is what the rest of us are being told by your side. Maybe you aren't foaming at the mouth like these people, but we aren't hearing from you, other than on this itty-bitty blog.
My movement? Boy, aren't we presumptuous.
I truly hope you are not so young and inexperienced, or so poorly trained as a reporter, to believe that the loudest faction on one side is representative of the entire movement. By your logic, MoveOn.org and Code Pink are representative of all liberals, or conservative evangelicals are representative of all Christians.
You really owe it to your readers and to your employer to be better than this.
Reading your post, I got the impression that the actual White House Office of FB & NP would oppose this--which seemed nonsensical, as a WH office would be unlikely to oppose the President.
When I went to the US News article, it says "groups working with" the WHOFB&NP (geez, they need to shorten that). That's quite a bit different.
And in Bubbadog's defense, I do think that you are treating a fairly disparate group of people--"the antiabortion crowd"--in a monolithic way. The folks raising a ruckus are representatives of organized religion that would be happy to tell you that they do indeed oppose extramarital sex AND what they consider to be murder. These tend to be the more conservative spectrum of that movement.
It is my expectation that Obama will not decouple the two pieces (abortion prevention and support of pregnant women), and will let these more conservative types choose between accomplishing something positive or demonstrating that they are too ideological to do so.
That is the whole point to the common ground approach and it is what he does well.
