Let's re-label Pro-Lifers as the ARP!

Here's the thing, I wrote a blog this week saying that perhaps, as Pro-Life as an agenda title has already been absconded by the Right Wing, perhaps we need a correspondingly opposite title for an agenda that is opposed to theirs.

But perhaps I was wrong. In rethinking about this just now, it occurred to me that perhaps what we need is to re-label the Right Wing's own agenda.

What is it that all people, everywhere, regardless of sex, sexual orientation or religious persuaision, have in common? Flesh and bone. We are all sacks of water, meat and calcium. Now we can add all that crap that religion and politics steeps upon us.

Being "Pro" Life sounds like a good idea, right? We're all "Pro" Life. But not unlike an eight year old, they are pushing that agenda as the end all, be all of a very complicated situation. As I indicated in my previous blog, there are two aspects to any Life. There is the element of living, and there is the element of quality of Life. Something the Right Wing has pushed down our throats for years regarding Right to choosing our time of death (suicide, physician assisted suicide).

There is one more element we need to face down.

Humans, are not all that great. We are not so wonderful that we should never be killed, right? Law enforcement, military, even the judicial branch of governments (capital punishment) kill pepole all the time and with good reason.

Police typically kill to save lives. As we have limitednon lethal effective deterrentswhen dealing with situations where someone has overwhelming lethal force, killing them, to save innocent lives, is sometimes the only thing to do. Military, similar but somewhat indirect situation much of the times, but basically the same concept; and where it's not, we just start wars and kill people; or we allow other people in other countries to slaughter their own citizens without lifting a finger to stop it, thus somewhat at least, condoning it.

Why is abortion such a big deal, but there has been 2,000 young American military lives lost in the war in Afghanistan, and there is no moral outrage, certainly not like there is over aborting fetuses, about these also, innocent young people dying, and for what? As Bill Maher pointed out on his Friday night show, the first 1,000 deaths had a reason and he was for our going into Afghanistan, where those who attacked us on 9/11 were and not Iraq; but what did the second 1,000 die for? Where is the moral outrage in the Republican party, their candidate, his running mate, and the "Pro-Lifers"?

Again it is so much that disparity between sex and violence, like in films. You can show someone's brains being blown out, but don't show a woman's vagina. What is it these people are so fearful of when it comes to sex, especially sex for pleasure (or Cannabis for pleasure and not only medical purposes, and the whole "War on Drugs" which is a war on American citizens)? What is it about these right wing theists that is so fearful about pleasure? Because abortion only for "Forcible Rape" is all about no abortion if sex was for the pleasure of the woman. Obviously, rape is about the pleasure of the man, albeit for control/power purposes and not so much for sexual gratification, typically.

Okay and finally, Capital Punishment, some higher concept countries have outlawed it as inhumane. Okay, they may even be right on that. It IS the moral highground.

However, I do believe that there are times when someone should be killed, with prejudice, and on the spot; to be put down like a rabid dog. We are not God's gift to this planet, regardless of what you think. All religion aside, this planet would do far better without us.

We also still have issues of world population to deal with that we still need to get under control.

So basically, from our own actions, people dying is really not that big of a deal to us. So, why are some making such a big deal over abortion? Why is killing a zygote or a fetus, such a big deal? Why? Wny isn't the mother any real concern to these people? Do you have any idea (men) what it would be like to have something growing in you from a horrific event that you know you will have to suffer great pain and years after of dealing with the result of a rape?

Non-forcible rape, includes not only statutory rape, but others. For instance:

Gross Sexual Imposition – Unlike the common law, the Model Penal Code does not provide for rape on the basis of fraud. However, such conduct does constitute the offense of gross sexual imposition. Subject to the marital immunity exemption, a male is guilty of gross sexual imposition if he has sexual intercourse with a female in any one of three circumstances:

	1.)	the female submits as the result of a "threat that would prevent resistance by a woman of ordinary resolution," e.g., if the woman is threatened by a supervisor with loss of employment. [MPC § 213.1(2)(a)]
	2.)	a male has sexual relations with a female with knowledge that, as the result of mental illness or defect, she is unable to appraise the nature of his conduct. [MPC § 213.1(2)(b)]
	3.)	a male knows that the female is unaware that a sexual act is being committed upon her or that she submits because she mistakenly believes that he is her husband. [MPC § 213.1(2)(c)]

As we heard in the news recently, a mentally challenged ten year old girl would have been forced to have a child as she had not been "forced" ("Should a 10-Year-Old Mentally Disabled Victim of Incestuous Rape Be Required to Carry a Fetus to Term?" - check it out, good article). As the article indicated: "In Kansas...a doctor may lose her license for allowing a mentally-ill 10-year old girl who was raped by her uncle to get an abortion." Really?

Dr. Neuhaus’ rebuttal to the charges against her:

“To even claim that isn’t medically necessary qualifies as gross incompetence,” said Neuhaus. “Someone’s 10 years old, and they were raped by their uncle and they understand that they’ve got a baby growing in their stomach and they don’t want that. You’re going to send this girl for a brain scan and some blood work and put her in a hospital?” (for more clarity on this, please see the article)

Well, if you consider someone killing a shark that has been killing cute little seals, many people have no issues with it. If someone tries to kill the cute little seals, there is an uproar.

We don't have much trouble with killing a big, fat, greasy, grizzly old child serial murderer.

But if we are so upset over killing a pre(non) child, how is the greasy old murderer's life worth so much less? No. Seriously, you have to apply your logic cleanly and across all circumstances. Right? It was conjectured somewhere, if a rape victim births her child, then five years on decides the child looks too much like her rapist, does she have the right to kill it then? This, following though on my theory, basically. Obviously, no. It is even a stupid question. She has options, she can put it up for adoption, for instance. She will need counseling and obviously would have already been needing it. She probably should have had the abortion to begin with and proper therapy may have shown that in the first place.

Or would you be saying that it's all more complicated than that? Are you now arguing on the side of killing a human being? If it's between killing an unborn child, or not even a human yet, but a zygote, the life form that exists before a baby becomes a baby, or a greasy old child serial murderer, you'd choose the child. Right?

But, shouldn't you have chosen not to kill either? See the imbalance? We're Human, yes, but we're screwed up. And we're not so God awful important, we just have huge egos and like to think we are so important. Therefore, we like to raise ourselves up on high and say we can't kill children, or pre-children, or pre-pre-children. This week it was proposed in the media by one group that women's eggs should be legally considered a life form. When they are NOT, they are cells. They do NOT become remotely human until conception, or sometime pre birth, or at the point of birth, depending upon your conception of the situation, or the legal definition you go by.

All things mentioned above considered, abortion really, is not therefore that big a deal. We just make it a big deal.

And is that right?

We should be careful in legally considering ending life of any kind. But it doesn't mean we can act like children by being thoughtless, in being knee-jerk reactive, gut feeling responsive, and make it illegal in any situation. To some degree I do think as Humans we should make it a big deal about killing people. But there is a limit. At some point, we should just stop talking and realize that life is complicated and that we do not and should not always have the say, and we should not have the say legally, or morally/ethically about certain situations and about certain people. We stick our noses too much now a days into too many things that should be personal and private decisions.

Old or terminally ill people have their own right to life, or death. If we have a God given right to life, it follows that we have a God given right to death, too. How do I know that? Becuase, right now, I can shoot myself in the head and end things. THAT, is a God given right. Because I can do it. And no, it's stupid to think that I also have the God given right to kill someone else. Or maybe I do, but I decide it more reasonable not to be that way, because then people might want to kill me. We do need laws, we need to protect those who cannot speak for themselves, but how much at the cost of those who can speak for themselves but we will not allow them to speak, or to decide? Mother's have their own right to the life of their children, at very least, before the third trimester. What is the cutoff then?

My argument would be when it resembles an actual human being. When it can conceive of pain and death. Because Human is not Human simply at a certain stage of life, a chronologically set time frame, but by conception; not just the brain formation but the information contained within that brain that can conceive of itself as life and that, in some form, doesn't happen until some time after birth. In some cultures they don't even consider children as Human until they hit a certain age. And there is something to be said for that, there is an argument for that. It's not my argument, surely it has a basis in reality.

Something the Right Wing (typically Republicans) don’t have a clue about. Because it's not a quick comment, it's not a sound bite sized position. Life, is complicated. Ending life is just as complicated.

At some point we need to realize that and back off some.

So, "Pro-Life" is a misnomer. Which is the point of this entire article. I'm not trying to sell a position on any of what I was just talking about. I'm just trying to point out that "Pro-Life" is wrong. I am Pro-Life. These Right Wing mental midgets, aren't. Because first of all, they only are arguing half the subject. Second, they are selling the cute factor in abortion as to what is important. But women, the vessels of who is carrying the child, is also important. The quality of her life is also important.

Otherwise what are you doing? You are trying to be another version, a "Christian" version of, wait for it... the Taliban.

No, I'm not joking. Think about this, think about it very carefully. Because if you are a Paul Ryan, Todd Akin type Pro-Lifer, then you are not very different than the Taliban in wanting to force religious oriented beliefs onto others; only in this case, it's not just others of your same religion.

Much in the same way that Mark Twain referred to Congress as that, "Grand Old Benevolent National Asylum for the Helpless", I think we can come up with another name for "Pro-Lifers" as well. To dwell a moment longer on another comment by that Grand old Genius Mr. Twain, again about Congress, he said: "Imagine, that you are an idiot. And then imagine that you are a member of Congress. What a minute, I repeated myself."

So I guess what I'm saying is, we should start calling hardline "Pro-Lifers", something else. And I would suggest the American Religious Persecutors, or ARP.

So Ladies and open minded Gentleman, I give you the newly rebranded "Pro-Life" movement, or the ARP!

And please, feel free to come up with your own, more clever moniker. Because if we can't make fun of this, if we cannot have a sense of humor about it while trying to put it in it's proper place, that is, in the receptacle next to your desk, then we will only succeed in making our life as miserable and lifeless as those who designate themselves so incorrectly as being Pro-Life.