If people were all of one mind about the law, Shakespeare would not have thought it funny to include the line about the law being “a idiot, a ***”. Nor would lawyers be as vilified as they are. “First thing we do, let’s hang all the lawyers.” strikes a note with people now as it did in Shakespeare’s time.
While legislators do pay attention to what the perceived majority of votes want, they obviously do not always base their decisions on it. Judges, who make more law than the legislators do, certainly don’t hold plebescites before issuing decisions.
Some 70% of the population favors SOME KIND of limitation of abortion. The degree varies. Without question, voters in some states would vote to ban abortion, in toto, right now. To what do they, then have to be educated? In some states, they would limit abortion to one degree or another. In some few, perhaps, abortion on demand would be the choice of the people. This is not really about converting people. Virtually unlimited abortion was never adopted by the will of the people.
What it is really about is the decision of five men; the Supreme Court in Roe and its progeny, made for all, without consulting the people at all, and in a manner that they knew would prevent the consciences of the populace from having any effect.
So, it’s really pointless to talk about leaving the law out of the abortion issue until the populace is persuaded. The opinion of the populace has been eliminated from the equation. The real question, and the only one, is whether the makeup of the Supreme Court can be changed. Appointments are made by the President, with the consent of the Senate. So, obviously, it matters what the views of the President and the Senate are.
The President and the Senate (as then constituted) approved two justices who, many think, are prolife. Both the President and the senate majority had to at least strongly suspect them of it.
But the Senate has changed, so that the Democrat party controls it. We are now looking at an election that will decide who the President will be. The two Dem candidates have made it clear they will appoint pro-abortion judges. The lone Repub candidate is, at least, a great deal closer to being prolife than are they.
Perhaps the terminology here is a bit excessive. “Liberals” do not generally refer to themselves as “left wing” and “Conservatives” do not generally refer to themselves as “right wing”. There are variations within the ranks of both.
But right now, the more “Liberal” part is the Dem party and the more “Conservative” is the Repub. Since the Dem party is utterly pro-abortion (no, I refuse to acknowledge the difference between ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-abortion’, but that’s another subject) and the Repub party is at least largely prolife (no, I refuse to give all ‘life’ issues equal validity with all others; again, another subject) it seems clear that voting Dem is, at present, essentially the same thing as voting for the continued legality of abortion on demand.
Never have I heard any prolife person speak in favor of jailing girls in pigtails. Nor, as I understand it, were women prosecuted for it even before the Supreme Court decided to impose its legality on the nation. Doctors were, and would be, the targets. They are all volunteers; every last one of them. They do not have “tragic circumstances” that reduce their voluntarism. The last I knew, none lived in poverty. Of course, since not every state would ban abortion and some would likely adopt Roe bodily as its law, even they would have states where they could ply their dark trade without fear of the law.
Those who maintain that public attitudes must change before the law regarding abortion should change, should welcome a Supreme Court that overturns Roe and its progeny. Then, and only then, can we find out what attitudes really are. Since those who oppose abortion personally, but who want to wait for a change in attitude would likely see the public in a number of states take a prolife stand, a prolife Supreme Court that would allow them to vote should be their fondest wish. But is it? Is the insistence on some kind of “consensus” a cover or rationalization for a different desire? Or is it a desire to push a “liberal” agenda in other ways, at the sacrifice of prolife values? Or is it simply confusion about it all?
I am not unfamiliar with poverty; not even the poverty of which Nom speaks, which is more a poverty of education and spirit than it is of money. I lived for a time in one of the worst inner city slums I, at least, have ever seen.
I also know immigrants who come here with less education than even slumdwellers have. Some have none at all. I have seen, e.g., Guatemalans who made their way from some jungle clearing through an implacably hostile and cruel Mexico to work here. Some are not so young, either. Look closely at the next roofing crew you see. I can assure you, without any great fear of being proved wrong, that virtually all are illegal as well, and most cannot speak any English at all. (though they can certainly tally up a paycheck) And most, at least that I know, are solidly prolife. Education alone is not really a sufficient explanation of why some people live, unemployed, in miserable circumstances, and have abortion after abortion.
Most definitely it does not explain abortions among middle and upper class women.
Those Christians showed me Christ.
