Bigtime Rant: On Being Pro-Life and a Liberal

Let me see if I can articulate my position on "life", as a liberal. By the way, I'm disowned by both sides of the political spectrum on this issue, which is fine by me. It must mean I'm on to something worthwhile.

I consider myself pro-life. That means I'm anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia and anti-death penalty. Because I am pro-life, I also support "life support" programs that actually improve people's chances at living lives that are meaningful, safe, and law-abiding: fully funding early and public education, living wage laws, workers' rights, universal health, substance abuse treatment, workforce training, and more.

Pro-abortion liberals tell me it's a right to abort babies but it's not society's right to execute criminals. (They won't say "babies", though, opting to instead use the euphemistic phrase "unwanted pregnancies" -- as though pregnancies were isolated personal biological events not connected to the procreative process.) The same liberals often tell me they support PETA, they support animal rights, they support human rights in Darfur and Tibet -- but abortions -- even partial-birth abortions -- aren't morally problematic for them. I walk away, amazed.

Abortions are a choice they tell me. Why can't I understand -- it's simple! Abortions are part of a strong foundation for personal freedom and political enfranchisement. Huh? I say... Are they really?

I ask if they've ever seen pictures of abortions and they tell me I'm missing the point, that it's irrelevant what they look like. I ask why they're citing how cruel and unusual death by electrocution is in in their case against the death penalty. I ask why the selective application of the pain and suffering clause? Is it because death row inmates can talk?

I truly don't get it. How can liberals love playing with their newborn nieces and nephews (and sons, and daughters...) but have no qualms supporting the torturous killing of 2nd or 3rd trimester fetuses? Is it because it's "politically important" to them, above all else? Really? Politics trump life, eh?

Hypocrites, I say, and I'm always prepared for the "you're not really a liberal" response. The inconsistency on this issue is so blatant to me that I can't sit quietly and disagree, like I used to.

The "life" issue that seems to resonate with libearls most assuredly is the death penalty issue. What's interesting is that many (no, not all, but most) convicted criminals on death row are actually guilty of something morally repugnant -- not just guilty of having sex and disliking the consequences. But for those citizens, the unborn ones, liberals are readily willing to appoint the mother as judge, jury, and executioner. No evidence, no trial.

If that isn't upside-down and backwards, I'm not sure what is. Why and how could liberals want convicted criminals spared death and not these innocents?

Liberals tell me how dare I take a stand this strongly when I'll never be the one that has to carry that baby, to care for it, to nurse it. And they're right, I won't. But those risks, those inconveniences, those burdens... were waived when you had sex. You abdicated control the minute you made your real choice. You chose to commit the act -- you didn't defer until later, once you got to see what happened and determined it wasn't what you wanted, that it didn't "fit into your plans".

You'll tell me it's different for cases of rape. I'll ask what part that baby played in the father's act of violence and anger... and you'll say it's irrelevant. I'll say it's entirely, completely relevant. You'll walk away rolling your eyes at me.

I'll be lectured that they're not babies, they're not human. But my liberal fiends can't seem to identify a point during pregnancy at which a fetus goes from an undifferentiated clump of cells to a baby with inalienable human rights. They calmly tell me it's at the "point of viability" outside the womb that a fetus becomes a human. As though it's a fixed, absolute point. I'll ask where they think that point will end up... because medicine is moving that date up every month, earlier and earlier. They change the subject.

Is it that they were wrong, that viability and "humanness" have nothing truly to do with one another? Are liberals afraid to admit that science can't ever tell them when that fetus isn't human? How do they deal with that one? Err on the side of "not life"? Why? That doesn't seem to jive with their other viewpoints.

I am a liberal, but I refuse to surrender my liberalism because I'm consistently pro-life, on abortion, on the death penalty, on euthanasia. I will never and can never accept that in an enlightened Western civilization such as ours, unwanted pregnancies -- unwanted babies -- are aborted. I think it's unbelievable. Horrifying. Pathetic.

What would be really liberal, really progressive, is a society in which we didn't kill babies for their parents' mistakes, accidents, and miscalculations.

A parting shot for the Religious Right: how deeply hypocritical are you, to insist from your pulpits that banning abortion is the only goal... while undermining all of the social programs that actually improve lives? You say the government shouldn't be responsible for improving lives or caretaking citizens, and I say fine, great -- show me the concerted, private, social services network that you have waiting in the wings that can re-create that same level of support/care.

I'd be happy to donate instead of being taxed.

But it never materializes. The plan doesn't exist: "faith-based programs" are a sham and the conservatives all know it. They don't want to fix anything on this issue, they want to moralize. They want to tell people how to live their lives, without offering to improve those same lives.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, conservatives and liberals... you're all hypocrites when it comes to "life". And I'm happy to fit into neither of your camps.