In case you're wondering how I formed such a crazy opinion, let me share a quick background... at the age of 10, I lost a seven-week-old sister to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, also known as "crib death". It was mortifying. This was in 1984, just as the phrase "Right-To-Life" was entering my secluded Northern Michigan town. The next year, I saw my first parade floats with banners deriding abortion and asked my parents what it was. I was shocked - people were killing babies, when I had just last summer lost my only sister? Murderers!
Luckily, with the age of reason, I became aware of all the complexities involved in the decision to abort, and whereas I might have been a Right-To-Lifer with all the doddering old ladies in the Rogers City parade, I stuck with logic, intelligence, and good old-fashioned empathy to help me understand the needs for such a decision in certain and many situations.
But to bring back my topic - for cripes' sake, is this a "reproductive right"? Do you really have the right to kill a living thing that YOU CREATED? Well, I suppose so, because in the golden words of Mr. Cosby, "I brought you into this world, I'll take you out". Funny, though... that simple statement shirks so much responsibility, it's precisely what makes us laugh at it. To readily dispose of a problem you yourself created rather than face it and own up is horrid to the point of comedy. In fact, that's precisely what we often chide Mr. Bush and his cronies for doing: creating Saddam Hussein, then disposing of him; creating thousands of neglected poor, then disposing of their welfare; creating No Child Left Behind and summarily leaving it behind. We handily criticize the president for his complete lack of responsibility to the problems he's helped to create.
And that's where the phrase "reproductive rights" tends to lose me. Sure, you have reproductive rights, but with these rights come RESPONSIBILITIES. You make your bed, you lie in it; you make your baby, you feed it. If it sounds harsh, maybe it should be. Perhaps instead of focusing on "reproductive rights" - that is, we have the right to abort any baby we've mistakenly created - we should be the party of "reproductive responsibility" - that is, we can become responsible enough NOT to create babies mistakenly.
Sincerely, how could anyone argue with that? It certainly makes our side sound a little less like we LOVE abortion, which the selfish concept of "reproductive rights" always makes me cringe. Coming off like you have the right to ruthlessly kill something you yourself helped create is fine for Bill Cosby's stand-up routine, and Mr. President might find it perfectly acceptible for himself and his administration, but that's not what my Democratic Party is about.