Reflecting on the Republican debate, I was astonished to realize how all those ‘right to life’ candidates care about ‘the value of human life’. “All life matters!” they declared! “I value life, even the life of unborn fetuses!” and so forth.
Isn’t it great that there are so many humane, caring candidates?
But, hang on a second, let me get something clear:
Do you care about the fetus just when it’s a fetus or throughout its life?
Is there a point in time when you ‘life lovers’ cease to care about those ‘valuable lives’ you’re insisting be born?
Do you care about them after they are born, abandoned and scooped up by under-funded foster care programs or after they are taken home to an impoverished, unloving home where they weren’t welcomed in the first place? Do you care if they scream from hunger or die from Failure to Thrive?
Let me ask you this:
How often do you advocate for the rights and needs of these fetuses after they are no longer fetuses getting your televised advocacy?
Do you care about them if their mothers are teenagers and unable to care for them? Do you care about them when they are being abused or neglected? Because you care so much are you stepping up to the plate and offering to pay for their food, to raise them, to provide them with medical care?
Do you care about them when they need special therapeutic services for their disabilities or their inabilities many of which may relate directly to the fact that they were unwanted in the first place? Do you care about them when they are naughty or can’t keep up in school? How about when they are delinquent or abusing drugs or alcohol? Do you care about them when they are guilty of domestic violence, auto theft or are arrested for armed robbery and are sent to prison?
When exactly do you stop caring, because saving fetuses is not the end of their story.
These fetuses you insist reluctant mothers deliver do not remain fetuses forever, you know. Its 9 months and they’re out. What exactly do you think happens next?
I get that you candidates are wildly passionate about those fetuses and their right to life but do you spend even one single, solitary minute thinking about the life all those unwanted, fetuses will have? Do you think for even a single moment about what it would be like for someone to spend at least 18 years raising a child they didn’t want? And if you’re going to say adoption is a grand option… it’s not. First it’s not that easy to adopt a child. Second many adoption programs are filled with children who for one reason or another are considered unadoptable. What do you fiscally conservative opponents of social welfare programs think happens to these poor former fetuses?
If you want to be consistent about your God-given values vote to put billions of dollars where your mouths are. Resurrect all those early childhood programs you’ve slashed funding for; reinstate the billions you cut from social services and public health programs; put money into sex education and birth control programs and parent effectiveness training programs for teenagers; put billions of dollars combating childhood hunger by funding before and after school programs and free lunch programs and start handing out free diapers and baby formula on the street corners because without the ‘right to choose,’ the street will be overflowing with babies.
Perhaps you candidates have been too busy preaching to realize this, but Planned Parenthood educates people about their bodies and effective means of managing their reproductive systems. Since motherhood is a life-long commitment, it should be made when that person is actually ready to make that commitment, not because you aspiring presidents tell them they have to. To be tied life-long to an unwanted relationship because a bunch of political wanna-be’s decide you must is simply absurd.
You ‘right to lifers’ spend a lot of time on the stump talking about the importance of personal responsibility. You say people should take care of themselves, work, pay taxes and live good balanced lives. All that sounds great but then you cut funding for the very programs that are designed to help them do that. You can’t have it both ways.
So here’s a word of advice to all those mothers out there who ended up with an unplanned pregnancy because of politicians who pander to the religious right.
This is what all you mothers should do … as soon as you are discharged from the hospital you drive that baby over to Mike Huckabee’s house or Marco Rubio’s house, or Scott Walker’s house, or Ted Cruz’s house or Rick Santorum’s house. If you’re in the neighborhood try Jeb Bush’s house or Chris Christie’s house and if you can figure out where he lives take the baby to Donald Trump’s house or his hotel. Give these guys your baby. Even though the baby’s not a fetus anymore it’s still a ‘life’ and these fellas are screaming pro-life advocates so I’m sure they’d love the chance to do God’s will and take care of all those babies they wanted to be born.
It’s really a perfect solution. You put your ‘right to choose’ into practice and they get to operationalize their ‘pro-life’ stance. Everybody wins! And next year when it’s time for the General Election, remember this blog and make sure you vote!