Question: are you pro-choice? Do you call yourself a Democrat as well? Democrats are, after all, supposed to be pro-choice and favor abortion, but what exactly does it mean to say you are in favor of it?
Back in October of 1997, President Bill Clinton vetoed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. Partial-birth abortion, or “Intact Dilation and Evacuation,” involves killing a baby (or mildly put, “fetus”) by jamming scissors into its head and sucking out its brains therefore caving in the skull with half of its body already out of the mother. Fortunately, due to the efforts of President George Bush and the bill passed by Congress and Senate, this act may be banned in September.
Not only does President Clinton acknowledge partial-birth abortion but the government funding of it. Would you really like to see your tax dollars go toward women aborting babies? Then again, would you like to see the money go toward the education of abstinence? In addition to these attributes of pro-abortion, Democrats are for minors getting an abortion without parental consent. Would you really feel that it would be all right if your child had such a surgical procedure without your knowledge? On the other hand, you should allow them to have privacy, right?
Evidently, being a Democrat can mean you are against abortion. Democrats did help pass the bill to ban partial-birth abortions. Then why do they call themselves Democrats? Some Republicans voted against the banning. Then why do they call themselves Republicans? It is easy to say that the labels mean nothing but even more difficult to prevent them from influencing when we vote. Considering abortion, how can one really side with one party without agreeing with the other?
The bottom line is that we should be careful about choosing which side of the abortion argument: Democrats or Republicans. There are still many variables, like the exact definitions of privacy, abortion and child. Just because Republicans (particularly our current president) are against abortion does not mean that they have the perfect view. Is abortion OK if the woman was raped?
In the end, banning partial-birth abortion and being against all areas of the procedure just makes Republicans look a lot less dimwitted and a lot smarter. Hopefully, September of 2003 will be the month that killing babies (“fetuses”) by suction of brains will be officially outlawed. This will be one thing that President Bush may be commended for.
Naomi Hall can be contacted at cagedancer@mindspring.com.