OK, I’m coming out of the closet. I’m pro-life.

[iverglas]

103. call me a "raging absolutist"

And I will say: ABSOLUTELY.

I am a raging absolutist when it comes to women's right to life and liberty.

I brook no arbitrary interference in the exercise of those rights, I admit of no "compromise" of those rights by anyone on women's behalf, and I regard pandering in any way to those who would interfere in them as anti-woman.

I'm amazed at the outrage some here seem to feel

Ah, yes, it's teh outrage. Fine: I'm outraged at people who want to be considered to be progressive and talk about women's rights in ways they would talk about no one else's.

Did anyone ever say that they wanted the presence of African-American children in integrated schools to be "safe, legal and rare"? Does anyone say that same-sex marriage should be "safe, legal and rare"? Why is it that women's rights are the ones that need to be exercised rarely? Wouldn't those be ways to persuade racists and homophobes to go along?

That's all this "safe, legal and rare" stuff is. It's a way of showing the anti-choice brigade that we all cluck our tongues about abortion too, but it's one of those necessary evils, yada yada. No, it isn't. For the individual women who make that choice, it is necessary (there being no other way at that point to avoid the unwanted outcome that is the only alternative), but it ain't an evil, either morally or pragmatically.

If a woman would prefer not to be pregnant, I'd prefer that she have access to the best means of achieving that end. But if the outcome of whatever choices she makes along the way is that she chooses to terminate her pregnancy, that is not my business, and I will not make some gigantic deal out of what is actually not a gigantic deal for a lot of women.

If my uncle's lung cancer could have been prevented at the front end, he would not have had to have the procedure removing a lung... so am I so wrong for preferring the former over the latter?

The question is: do you go around saying that cancer treatment should be safe, legal and rare?

Get a grip, folks... it seems that it's not only the anti-choicers that rabidly jump on every word.

Some of us have a very firm grip. Despite the slipperiness of the fishes laid out in front of us.