Libertarians differ over abortion; I fall into the camp that supports women's abortion rights (I refuse to use the ridiculous weasel terms "pro choice" and "pro life).
But there are libertarians who hold that abortion is murder, and that therefore its prevention is one of the few legitimate usages of state power, and we manage to co-exist.
However, there is NOTHING remotely libertarian about what Texas passed yesterday. Instead, we have the Texas GOP using the power of the state to coerce women into specific decisions. You want to make abortion illegal--fine, go for it. But for the State to tell women which clinics they can patronize based on the thin fantasy that they are insuring better quality medical care is simple (and, yes, I'm going there) another facet of the conservative war on women.
My position is pretty simple: women have the right to choose their own medical care and procedures, period. Whether it is abortion, home birth, breast implants, life-threatening or cosmetic, if women are not free to make their own medical decisions without state intervention, they are not free.
(That said, I am strongly in favor gathering all the information you can about potential procedures and practitioners, the risks, etc. But while I advise that, it's your body and your level of acceptable risk that counts, not mine.)
Somehow I do not see Texas women letting their menfolk off the hook for this one, and I hope the Libertarian Party of Texas, which contains a lot of my friends and some very savvy political opportunists.
3 comments:
Republicans are quick to claim that they aren't waging a "War on Women" but instead that Democrats keep bring up abortion to pull women's votes. That's bullshit and what's happening in Texas, the horrifying ultrasound law in Wisconsin (a woman seeking an abortion for ANY reason has to submit to an ultrasound where the technician shows you the fetus' hands, eyes, feet etc.)and the new laws in ND, prove that the GOP is, in fact, waging a very aggressive WAR ON WOMEN.
Hell, if you do some research you'll find that GOP Golden Boy Paul Ryan thinks that women don't get pregnant when they're raped. Half of these bastards think a woman who isn't a virgin can't be raped.
My "R" registration is hanging by a thread, but unfortunately the fact that the Libertarian Party refuses to stand on the side of women's reproductive rights keeps me from joining your party. I think Ron Paul is holding you back on this issue.
I can never be a Democrat, so that's not an option.
The only place for a Republican woman like me to go is Unaffiliated. Unaffiliated and Angry to be precise.
...the horrifying ultrasound law in Wisconsin (a woman seeking an abortion for ANY reason has to submit to an ultrasound where the technician shows you the fetus' hands, eyes, feet etc.
As long as the boy/man that's the father has to be there too, why shouldn't people have to look at those they're sacrificing in order to profit for themselves? I guess a law favored by PETA in which everyone has to look at the animals that they've been incorporated into killing would be horrifying too. But at some point, people lose their grasp of reality and engage in the wanton destruction of life if they never have to see or look at what they're doing.
....and the new laws in ND, prove that the GOP is, in fact, waging a very aggressive WAR ON WOMEN.
No more than PETA would be waging a war on people by trying to have them look at what they're actually doing.
It's important to remember that no one is really trying to wage a war against other people just for the hell of it. Whatever they're doing, from their perspective it's usually justified and righteous and so forth. Do politicians use wedge issues and wage war just for the hell and power of it? Sometimes. But that's not the case with the true believers that are out to save the babies or the animals. Don't hate them all or become narrow minded to the point of being incapable of seeing things from their perspective, they're usually compassionate men and women and not just a bunch of people waging "war" for their causes for the hell of it and so forth. (Some may do that... but most don't.)
I happen to be one of those "pro-life" Libertarians, who doesn't think the state should be involved in the personal lives of it's citizens. I always choose education over criminalization. I have to laugh at "pro-life" Republicans that take great pride in their label... but continue to support war, drone strikes, and such. Let's be honest, they are only pro-fetus, not pro-life. MMc
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