Healing the divide
A new blog called Left2Right seeks to reach out to us pickup-driving, gun-toting, red state residents of Jesusland. One post by Gerald Dworkin attempts to find mutual ground, a noble endeavor. One such item raised was:
Both parties to the abortion debate can agree that it would be preferable if there were fewer abortions
I don’t think you’d get any disagreement from either side on that one. I, who am left on a number of issues and right on others (left on that issue), tend to agree but I think the following statement proves that the left fails to understand or refuses to understand some issues:
Both those who advocate gun-control and those who oppose it can agree that trigger-locks and other safety devices are desirable.
I am as pro-gun as they get and I don’t think trigger-locks and other safety devices are desirable. If a trigger lock is placed on a handgun that’s primary use is home defense, you may as well have a paperweight or a rock. My personal criteria for a home defense handgun is that it is one that a police officer would trust with his life and they generally don’t carry weapons with trigger locks, low capacity magazines, or other safety devices.
I also view those who would mandate the use of trigger-locks as attempting to exert an unnecessary control over a constitutionally enumerated right to arms. I also view it as an attempt to make guns less beneficial for defense purposes, therefore making them less appealing.
I tend to doubt Mr. Dworkin has had any serious discussion about this issue with anyone who is pro-gun. I think for this Left2Right thing to work, they need to make a serious attempt at understanding us Jesuslanders.
The real mutual ground is that both sides agree that gun death and gun violence need to be reduced. They disagree on how to achieve that goal.
December 9th, 2004 at 12:33 pm
I think you’ll get plenty of disagreement on the abortion issue from the hard left, who give occasional lip service to “safe, legal and rare” but mean “safe, legal and common.” Unlike their more moderate counterparts, groups like Planned Parenthood, NARAL and NOW oppose every public or private policy that has any potential to influence anybody not to have an abortion. How else does one explain support for laws requiring employers to provide health plans that cover abortion, or opposition to waiting periods, counseling requirements, parental notification, bans on partial birth abortion, and even fetal homicide laws?
December 10th, 2004 at 4:34 am
X..I’ll agree with you on the fetal homicide laws. I think it was more of a the-other-side-supports-so-we-must-oppose-it kind of deal. It would have been less controversial if the anti-abortion groups weren’t the ones pushing for it and a vaguely worded law could end up criminalizing abortions.
AFAIK, health plan laws are limited to life and health of the mother. Are you saying that health plans should be exempt from paying for things that will save the life or health of someone?
Parental notification is a privacy issue. PBA is good marketing and really not much more than that.
I don’t really have a problem with waiting periods and counseling, but the devil is in the details. There are cases where the life or health of the mother is at stake such that these things need to be waived. Laws that don’t allow for these exceptions have been struck down. So then you have the potential of an over-zealous prosecutor in a red area going after doctors every time they invoke one of these exemptions and then get a Christian doctor to testify that no abortion is ever needed to save the life or health of a mother with a jury from red areas, its a sure recipe for curtailing legal abortions.
December 10th, 2004 at 2:46 pm
Both sides should support it. One side chooses not to, so that side is in a lousy position to complain about the law being controversial or their side having too little input. My theory is that most moderately pro-abortion/choice people have no problem with fetal homicide laws, but the extreme pro-abortionists do. By that, I mean the ones who refuse to admit that abortion raises any moral concerns whatsoever. After all, it makes no sense to treat the murder of a fetus like a murder, unless you think that there’s at least a chance that the fetus *might* be a human life worth protecting. And if it, then maybe women should think twice before killing it, either. This doesn’t have to lead to an anti-abortion result, however, as one could reasonably argue that the woman’s known rights trump the potential rights of a fetus who might not be human, while the same potential rights of that same fetus should trump the clearly nonexistent rights of an assailant. So it’s only a problem for those who are so pro abortion that they refuse to admit that anything gets killed.
I don’t buy the theory that any fetal homicide laws in existence, nor the one recently vetoed by Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, would have the effect of criminalizing abortion. Abortion rights are as safe in California as they are just about anywhere else, and have always been so, but Scott Peterson is still considered a double-murderer. Good.
Parental notification is an extreme pro-abortion issue, not a privacy issue. If it were really about a minor’s general “privacy” rights against his/her parents, the objection would to ALL parental notification requirements involving ALL medical procedures. Aside from cases of incest, abuse, etc., why should abortion be special?
I’m pretty sure that you’re wrong about HMOs, but I’m not positive about that so I’ll have to research the matter more thoroughly before responding to your question in full. The short answer is no, I don’t think HMOs should be allowed to withhold funding for abortions in the specific case where the mother’s life is in danger.
December 10th, 2004 at 5:56 pm
X…If a group that wasn’t involved with abortions was pushing the fetal homicide bills, there wouldn’t be any controversy over it. Its the symbolic value more than anything on both sides and not a good way to set public policy. From what little I know of the law, I would assume that a fetal homicide bill that criminalized abortion would get struck down anyway.
Some parental notification laws include provisions that state that the parents have to be informed even in cases of medical necessity and before the procedure can occur. I always thought that, for the most part, teenage children can keep most medical information confidential from their parents if they want to.
In terms of insurance, I’ve looked it up before and I’m pretty certain that insurers don’t have to cover abortion on demand, only medical neccesity and possibly rape and incest.
December 12th, 2004 at 3:42 am
Manish, that can’t be right. Check out this editorial from the L.A. Dog Trainer. If the law were as you say it is, the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act wouldn’t do anything.
December 13th, 2004 at 2:51 am
X…you didn’t link to anything
December 13th, 2004 at 2:54 pm
Crap. Here’s what I meant to link to.