Yes, I'm well aware that abortion is a dead horse that has been beaten to an unrecognizable pulp for over three decades.
And I'm aware that the day before the election, a Daily Kos diary by a person who often struggles to get a dozen comments or recommends isn't going to change much.
But hey, it's my diary, and I'll rant if I want to.
The latest Republican Party platform has this to say about abortion:
Faithful to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence, we assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.
...
We all have a moral obligation to assist, not to penalize, women struggling with the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy. At its core, abortion is a fundamental assault on the sanctity of innocent human life. Women deserve better than abortion. Every effort should be made to work with women considering abortion to enable and empower them to choose life.
Their 2004 platform also said this:
We oppose abortion, but our pro-life agenda does not include punitive action against women who have an abortion.
"The inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life."
"The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed."
"...abortion is a fundamental assault on the sanctity of innocent human life.
So, although they tiptoe around using the word, the Republican Party's platform espouses the belief that abortion is murder. If one has a fundamental right to life from the moment of conception, termination of that life is, by definition, murder.
And you know what? I get it. I completely understand and respect that particular point of view, although I disagree with it.
But here's what I don't get.
"We all have a moral obligation to assist, not to penalize, women struggling with the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy."
"Our pro-life agenda does not include punitive action against women who have an abortion."
Does. Not. Compute.
If a woman hired someone to kill her one-day old baby, she would go to prison for the rest of her life. The hitman, especially if he had made a career out of killing one-day old babies, would face the death sentence.
But a woman who chooses to, as they say, "murder" her baby before it's born? Their plan "does not include punitive action." They want to "assist" her, not "penalize" her.
Think about it for a second.
If a woman hired someone to kill her one-day old baby, or her one-second old baby, nobody in their right mind would say she just needed "assistance," not "penalizing" or "punitive action."
The Republican platform is saying that conspiracy to commit first-degree murder is a life sentence in one case, but cause for "assistance" in another case.
If you see abortion as murder, but don't want to treat it under the law as murder, YOU DON'T ACTUALLY THINK IT'S MURDER. People who are convicted of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder do not get "assistance" in place of "punitive action." They just get punitive action.
I have more respect for the opinions of people who want to prosecute abortion the same as murder as I do for the hypocrites who don't.
An even bigger hypocrisy? Saying you want to illegalize abortion except in cases of rape and incest, or for the life of the mother.
A woman wouldn't get a free pass if she hired someone to kill her one-day old baby if he was the product of rape or incest. A woman wouldn't get a free pass if she hired someone to kill her one-day old baby if she somehow knew with certainty that the baby would end up killing her. Yet, this is a pretty mainstream position by many.
Now, I personally don't think abortion -- particularly late-term abortion -- is "cool". I don't think it's the right choice to make. I think we should discourage it.
But I don't want to punish people who receive abortions, either. If you're going to criminalize something, you have to have punishments. Since I don't want punishments, I won't want to see it criminalized.
I'm pro-choice.
I'm not pro-abortion. Many people, including John McCain, throw this term around. I don't think anybody, except the most hardened misanthrope, is pro-abortion.
They're just pro-not-criminalizing-abortion-because-they-don't-think-it's-right-to-put-people-in-jail-for-it.
Now, somebody might say, "it's intellectually dishonest to allow abortion a day before birth, but disallow murder a day after a baby is born."
Maybe. But it's more intellectually honest than the Republican position: Calling both situations murder, but only treating one of them as murder.
You need to draw the line of "human right to life" somewhere, and "the moment it takes its first breath" is just as good of a line to draw as "the moment of conception." Anything before that line: No consequences, but discouraged. Anything after that line: Murder.
No squishy middle ground here, where you call it murder but don't treat it as murder, or call it murder and allow exceptions to murder.
Why don't we work to reduce abortions without filling our prisons even more?