There is a constant push and pull of liberals and conservative Christians. It’s always been this way from the conception of the United States of America’s bi-party system. For the most part, we live with each other in relative harmony, but much of the time we also butt-heads on controversial issues… such as abortions. My roommate just showed me this video of a woman who is a servivor of a late term abortion. That it is pretty fantastic that she survived (she discusses the low to little likelihood of this being a possibility). What’s even more fantastic is how she speaks to a room. Please watch this video here and see what I mean.
As you probably know from reading previous blog post, I’m reading the book Half the Sky. What’s interesting is that abortion is one of the issues discussed and I happen to be going through that section right now. It talks mainly about how the liberals and the conservatives are going about the issue of abortion in very different ways, but both want the same outcome: decrease in unplanned pregnancies. The conservative Christian group decided to tackle this goal by introducing a “gag-rule” which would cut off funding to groups that support abortion. In turn, over the course of about 20 years, the US cut off funds to the UNFPA because the organization gave an award to a guy who helped with coerced abortions. The UNFPA didn’t actually use the US’s money to perform abortions, but the fact the UNFPA gave an award and support a guy who did. This resulted in a large increase in unplanned pregnancies. This was NOT the desired result from the conservative Christians. All of those pregnancies makes the effort of getting out of poverty even more... possibly even feeding into human trafficking. A lot of these consequences are speculative, however, it's the reality of some.
The liberals have made their err on the maternal battle just as much as the conservative Christians. Using abortion as a form of birth control is destructive to the woman, emotionally and physically... especially the coerced abortions that happen in China to control population growth. Could you even imagine? Being SO excited that you had conceived a baby but then being forced to have an abortion? How devastating would that be? It happens everyday. In America, it's the woman's right to choose, but in many other countries, it's apparently the GOVERNMENT'S right to choose. How removed!? Also, simply dispersing condoms aren't going to get the job done. Education has to come with that hand-out.
My point is this: to solve this problem, we have to work together. I love it when she said, "Put your politics aside". We both want the same thing: increased value to each life. We want our mothers to deliver healthy babies and be healthy themselves. We want our children to grow up in a nurturing environment, educated, and prepared to go out on their own. We want able bodied people to work and earn a fair wage for their labor. Essentially, we want the decrease the volume of unplanned pregnancies, decrease volume of abortions, and increase the value of life. There is a direct correlation to unplanned pregnancies and poverty, maternal mortality, disease, etc.. So what's the answer? I don't know, but a good start is increasing the availability of contraceptives (condoms, copper T IUDs, etc.) as well as increasing education around sex, family planning, etc. I also believe microfinance is a good way to help this issue because it will help pull an individual out of poverty allowing that entrepreneur's children to get better education, thus decreasing the level of poverty in the next generation. obviously, this can't be done in a day, but we can all work together over the years to find a happy medium between super leftist liberals and very conservative Christians.
The liberals have made their err on the maternal battle just as much as the conservative Christians. Using abortion as a form of birth control is destructive to the woman, emotionally and physically... especially the coerced abortions that happen in China to control population growth. Could you even imagine? Being SO excited that you had conceived a baby but then being forced to have an abortion? How devastating would that be? It happens everyday. In America, it's the woman's right to choose, but in many other countries, it's apparently the GOVERNMENT'S right to choose. How removed!? Also, simply dispersing condoms aren't going to get the job done. Education has to come with that hand-out.
My point is this: to solve this problem, we have to work together. I love it when she said, "Put your politics aside". We both want the same thing: increased value to each life. We want our mothers to deliver healthy babies and be healthy themselves. We want our children to grow up in a nurturing environment, educated, and prepared to go out on their own. We want able bodied people to work and earn a fair wage for their labor. Essentially, we want the decrease the volume of unplanned pregnancies, decrease volume of abortions, and increase the value of life. There is a direct correlation to unplanned pregnancies and poverty, maternal mortality, disease, etc.. So what's the answer? I don't know, but a good start is increasing the availability of contraceptives (condoms, copper T IUDs, etc.) as well as increasing education around sex, family planning, etc. I also believe microfinance is a good way to help this issue because it will help pull an individual out of poverty allowing that entrepreneur's children to get better education, thus decreasing the level of poverty in the next generation. obviously, this can't be done in a day, but we can all work together over the years to find a happy medium between super leftist liberals and very conservative Christians.
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