Almost unanimously, Washington Democrats call themselves “pro-choice.” “I support a woman’s right to choose!” they thunder into any open microphone. “Choice,” of course, means abortion, though they rarely yell that word as loudly.
Being able to have abortions is where the Democrats’ passion for choice starts and stops. Elsewhere, Democrats sabotage a woman’s right to choose. Instead, they demand to make that choice for her, as they do for men.
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• I support a woman’s right to choose not to perform an abortion. Democrats disagree. While they rally early and often for the freedom to receive abortions, many Democrats oppose the same freedom for those who prefer not to give abortions. Due to religious, ethical, aesthetic, and other personal reasons, some medical workers prefer not to perform abortions. Democrats actively deny them that choice.
President Obama overturned a George W. Bush–era rule that protected the right of medical professionals to refuse to do abortions because of reasons of conscience. Obama’s Feb. 18, 2011, executive order strips this right from medical professionals other than doctors and nurses.
• I support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to use a traditional Thomas Alva Edison incandescent bulb. Democrats disagree.
The House of Representatives voted July 12 on a measure to repeal federal regulations that effectively will criminalize sales of Edison’s bulb starting next January 1. According to Freedom Action’s Myron Ebell, violators face a federal penalty of $200 per offending bulb sold.
Among 239 Republicans, 228 (or 95 percent) voted to liberate women (and men) so that they could choose among inexpensive incandescent bulbs, pricier LEDs, compact fluorescents (tainted with toxic mercury), and even candles. (Five thinking Democrats supported the GOP majority.) On average, candles cause 15,260 home fires and 166 attendant fatalities annually, the National Fire Protection Association reports. Yet candles remain legal.
Among 192 Democrats, 183 voted to deny a woman this choice, echoing President Obama’s veto threat. (Ten statist Republicans concurred.) Fully 95 percent of Democrats defended a 2007 law (signed by socialist Trojan Horse G. W. Bush) that is steering Americans, like cattle, toward alternative bulbs.
“These standards are not taking choices away,” Energy secretary Steven Chu recently told journalists. The polite word for Chu’s statement is “Orwellian.” The precise word is “lie.”
New federal efficiency rules deliberately raise the bar higher than Edison’s bulb can leap. Regulations that wittingly exceed a product’s defining features prohibit the product itself. Why should Washington take away donuts, for instance, when it could criminalize fried-dough pastries that encircle holes?
• I support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to use Avastin. Obama’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee disagrees. On June 30, ODAC rescinded its approval of this treatment for late-stage breast cancer. ODAC decided that Avastin’s side effects were not worth its five-month-average life extension, even though it lengthens the lives of “super responders” by upwards of two to three years. Perhaps ODAC forgot that a key side effect of metastatic breast cancer is death — as 40,000 women discover annually.
But that hardly matters to the pharmacrats who snatched this choice from some 17,500 American women who use Avastin. Ironically, those Obama-administration members likely support a woman’s right to control her body — but only regarding abortion.
• I support a woman’s right to choose whether or not to buy health insurance under Obamacare. Congressional Democrats disagree. They voted in near lockstep last year to compel women (and men) to participate in Obamacare. Without exception, Republicans opposed Obamacare and its individual mandate.
• I support a woman’s right to choose to send her child to an alternative school that accepts educational vouchers. Unfortunately, Washington Democrats disagree. Soon after Obama was inaugurated, the then-Democratic Congress scotched Washington, D.C.’s voucher program. It gave roughly 3,000 students vouchers worth up to $7,500 to escape Washington’s calamitous government schools. Despite its promising results, teacher unions detest this program. So, after Obama took charge, congressional Democrats swiftly killed it. Never mind the choices of the poor, mainly black mothers whose kids these vouchers benefited. Fortunately, House speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) successfully reauthorized these vouchers within last April’s bipartisan budget agreement.
• I support a woman’s right to work. Democrats disagree. Sen. Jim DeMint’s National Right to Work Act (NRWA) would allow a woman (and a man) to choose whether or not to join a union. So far this Congress, the South Carolina Republican’s legislation has received a cold shoulder from Democrats who uniformly support compulsory unionism. The Senate last voted on NRWA on January 22, 2009. DeMint introduced it as an amendment to the 2009 Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The motion to table DeMint’s amendment succeeded with 66 yeas to 31 nays, thus killing the measure. While the Senate’s 41 Republicans split 31 to 10, (76 percent voting with DeMint; 24 percent against), Democrats were unified. All 54 Democrats on the floor, and left-wing independents Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, voted 100 percent against allowing a woman to choose whether or not to become a union member. Instead, these 56 voted unanimously to force her to join a union as a condition of obtaining work at a labor-dominated shop.
“Every Democrat voted against women’s (and men’s) right to choose whether to support a labor union,” observes Patrick Semmens of the National Right to Work Committee. “Apparently they didn’t want Lilly and other women in the workplace to have freedom of choice when it comes to supporting Big Labor.”
• I support a woman’s right to choose Internet gambling as a pastime. Unfortunately, Obama’s Justice Department disagrees. On April 15, it hijacked the domain names of Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker — three foreign-based poker websites. Justice eventually let Poker Stars and Full Tilt serve foreign gamblers, provided that they discriminate against Americans. Thankfully, Antigua-based Absolute Poker is fighting Justice’s authoritarianism before the World Trade Organization.
If a woman chooses to kill the young American in her womb, nearly every Democrat in Washington, D.C., will fight for her like Marines at Iwo Jima. But if a woman desires almost any other choice, Democrats impersonate the Great Wall of China.
— Deroy Murdock is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.
Well said! I know women who vote Democrat solely to protect a woman's so called right to have an abortion. They don't realize that pretty soon that's the only thing they'll have a right to do!
During the Obamacare runup, I told my liberal "friends" that they were choosing to give a panel of so called experts the right to dictate care over every part of their bodies except their wombs. How stupid is that?
I have a good friend, smart woman, who didn't like Obama, sort of liked McCain, but voted Obama anyway solely based on the right to an abortion, which at 55, she's never had and most likely never will.
These people are balancing the fate of the entire country on the "right" to have an abortion. At this point, the argument is pretty much moot anyway. Unless we do these social issues state by state it won't be rolled back. Right now all's we're really fighting over is whether we have late term abortions and whether we're forced to pay for them through tax dollars; and yet, they've got . . . how many . . . women voting based on this single issue. Talk about being hoodwinked.
I just wonder why women should have the "right" to an abortion but not the "right" to say no to unprotected sex. If they would exercise the latter "right", the former one would not be an issue. Sadly, some have become dependent on post facto birth control as an alternative to being responsible adults.
Many things called "rights" are actually not "right to" but "right not to be denied to". If other women get abortions at a given provider, then a given woman walking in should not be denied. It shouldn't be interpreted as requiring facilities that do not provide abortions to give one to a woman who walks in and requests one. Are all clinics and medical facilities required to provide abortions? I suspect some do not, not from conscience reasons, but because they have other specialties. Now what? Will they have to expand their services?
How long before the right to an abortion becomes a ZPG requirement to have an abortion? If the government can make laws requiring what may be done with your body, why not require certain pregnancies, as well? The eugenics lobby would be on board.
The ultimate pro-choice advocacy is to allow the fetus to live long enough to be able to make a lifetime of choices. Even voting as a liberal could be a choice. We would have had at least 35 million more taxpayers right now if it wasn't for Roe vs. Wade.
The first requirement to be able to debate or discuss this issue or make a comment about it is you have to be alive. The only time I regret the consequences of pro-life is when Pelosi utters a peep. R vs W was 32 years too late and one pro-choice decision too short. Why is it that if the greatest praters of "diversity' had their way we would be regulated, controlled muzzled and every aspect of our lives channeled to the point where we would be reduced to a herd of mindless conformist robots? Social justice requires that you bend down in order to reach the straps of the boots you are trying to pull up. It also means you don't get back up again because while your down there they find more boots. In the Orwellian world Big Government demands that conformity become the norm. As one wit said liberals are trying to eradicate the cardinal sin of envy. You cannot be jealous of uniformity.
I also support a woman's right to gamble online. Unfortunately the Executive Branch is Constitutionally charged with enforcing US laws, even ones sponsored by Republicans, shepherded through Congress by Republican leadership, and signed by a Republican President. I guess justice only applies to illegal immigrants, not foreign companies that use fraud as an integral part of their business model.
There are no "illegal immigrants." Immigrants are here legally. Someone here illegally did not fill out an immigration application, wait for processing, and then relocate here after approval. The illegal walked in through the desert, going around the official port of entry, committing a felony and butting ahead in line, past others playing by the legal rules.
So an "immigrant" requires government approval? That's a bit of a redefinition of a pretty established word. You're assuming that everyone who came to live here legally is here to take up permanent residence(the definition of "immigrant": External Link), while everyone who came here through illegal means is not. At least I think you're assuming that, because if you aren't you're just misusing the language. Of course maybe you're right. Maybe all those people who walked tens or hundreds of miles through burning desert or paid thousands of dollars to be stuffed into a shipping crate are just here to hit us up for some free medical care, cash a couple welfare checks and bounce. That sounds rational.
What I can't get my head around is why Democrats are so "married" to abortion. Don't they see that millions of out-of-wedlock babies are the next generations of likely Democrat voters?! So what is that makes them want to kill off their next generations of voters?
Maybe its a behind the scenes acknowledgment that even they don't want the product of their social policies.
Maybe its another way to collapse the economy by starving it of new workers to support the millions of baby boomers that are going to crash the entitlement programs.
Maybe its a sop to unions to prevent new workers from competing for existing jobs. I just don't know. Someone help me here....
I'm sure you're right. I'm sure half of our country is committed to destroying our country through demographic manipulation. Because half of the people I see on the street probably hate America and want to collapse the economy that they rely on for jobs. And they probably are just really bad at political calculation, despite having a policy of wanting to destroy america and STILL controlling the White House and the Senate. Or maybe they really believe that a woman has the right to control her own body and you're just demonizing half the US population for nothing.
When we discuss the "right to abortion" we are talking about whether the Government may try to prevent women from having abortions.
But then it comes to "the right of medical professionals to refuse to do abortions because of reasons of conscience" we are talking about something different.
Aside from my distaste for Presidents - who are not legislators - enacting and un-enacting "rights" and from the fact that none of this had to do with an Executive Order by Presidents Bush or Obama (HHS, under Bush, enacted a regulation that went into effect on the last week of his Presidency and HHS, under Obama, repealed it), Mr. Murdock is using the term "right" in a rather odd way.
The Federal Government does not force medical professionals to perform abortions.
Rather, Mr. Murdock wants the Federal Government to punish employers who fire or discipline employees who refuse to perform abortions because they believe abortions are immoral.
Why? If I hire someone to work for me, what business is it of the Federal Government if I fire that person for refusing to do something - lawful - that I told him to do simply because he doesn't want to do it and is willing to say that the reason is because he believes it to be immoral?
No one is making you work for me. But if you work for me I want you to do whatever it is I tell you to do - as long as it's lawful. And if you don't want to do it, that's fine and dandy - quit and go work for someone else. I don't care.
But I don't want the Federal Government telling me that I can't fire you.
I know there's a "hook" here that Big Government types like Mr. Murdock love - there always is: I'm getting "Federal money". Well, if you're going to give me Federal money to do something that you're too lazy and cheap to do yourself, then impose conditions on me that relate to the use of the money - make me use it only for certain purposes, tell me to do whatever it is in only a certain way, make me account for it - whatever. But don't use your "leverage" to get me to do Other Stuff that you want me to do simply because you've got me right where you want me with the money.
It's abusive and wrong - Big Government sticking its nose where it doesn't belong and pretending that it's being virtuous.
whether the Government may use force to try to prevent a private employer from firing a person who refuses to do abortions because of reasons of conscience.
In other words, Mr. Murdock wants the Government to tell private employers that they can't fire an employee who refuses to engage in a legal activity ordered by the employer because that activity offends the employee's conscience.
That is - Big Government telling me that I can't fire an employee who won't do what he's told.
If Europe is taken over by the jihadists, the Marines may yet land in Normandy as they once did in Tripoli, but that hasn't happened yet. So, for his historical mistake regarding the Marines at Normandy, I hereby assign extra homework for DeRoy, which is to watch the following two movies: Saving Private Ryan (with Tom Hanks) and The Sands of Iwo Jima (with John Wayne).
The right to an abortion will soon become the duty to have an abortion, as it already has in China. It will be enforced by moral zombies with evil Orwellian titles such as "life preservers" or "earth helpers."
"Where orthodoxy is optional, it will soon be proscribed." --Richard John Neuhaus
I don't think that's a sound conclusion. Remember the "right to have an abortion" (regardless of whether the right is properly recognized or articulated by the federal courts) is stated as follows in Roe v. Wade:
"As recently as last Term, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 405 U. S. 453, we recognized 'the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person
as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.'
That right necessarily includes the right of a woman to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."
This right is a restriction on the power of Government: Government can't try to prevent women from having abortions because women have this affirmative right "to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy" - just as Government can't try to prevent you from saying that the President is an idiot (because you have the freedom of speech) or preaching that Jesus was a fraud (because you have the freedom of religion).
It no more follows from the recognition of this right that Government can "force" a woman to have an abortion than it does from the other two rights that the Government can force you to say that the President is an idiot or force you to say that Jesus was a fraud.
But suppose we have the converse: a woman has no right "to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy". And then a state passes a law requiring women whose fetuses are deemed to be "defective", or who already have had two children, to have an abortion.
What then would the argument by the woman be when the Government tried to hold her down and perform an abortion? If she had been afforded "due process" - i.e., there had been a sound determination that the fetus was "defective" or that the woman had already had two children - then what argument would the woman make to a federal court that would authorize it to enjoin the government from performing the abortion? In other words, if you don't have the right to "decide whether or not to terminate your pregnancy" - which means that there is no bar to the Government punishing you for having an abortion - what prevents the Government from forcing you to have an abortion?
I'm not saying you can't come up with something - one can always come up with something. (You could, ala Roe, just announce that there's a right not to be forced to have an abortion or announce that a fetus is a "person" under the 14th Amendment and can't be denied the protection of the homicide laws).
But the ability to prevent the government from forcing you to have the abortion is much greater if the "right to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy" (with the emphasis on the "not" part) is recognized than if it is not.
Who cares. Let them abort. I say go for it as it lessens the burden placed on society by these children as they grow up fatherless.
How about this one... get the male pill started. BOOM Fewer abortions. Males take their reproductive rights back. Everyone that counts is happy. Seriously though, Republicans dont want to pay for those babies out of taxes. They dont want them on social services, but they dont want to mother to be able to terminate.
More attempted social engineering by the holier than thou class. Go find a gas chamber.
