Today I watched an abbreviated interview between Mike Huckabee and Jon Stewart on the Daily show. Topic: abortion.
My Issues with Huckabee's arguments:
1. "Every life has value."
Huckabee says the fundamental argument for his stance against a woman's right to have an abortion rests on his position on life: all life has intrinsic value. If he has such a "pro-life" stance, why does this not apply to all life. By having a pro-war stance, he negates his "pro-life" stance. With this argument he's implying (intentionally or not) that life in the womb, is worth more than adult human lives. Why is he pro-death penalty? Here, he's saying that we have the right to take lives as a means of punishment.
2. "Can a person ever own another person?" (does the woman own the fetus, basically)
Of course not, but Republicans haven't been well known for their stance on freedom: Slavery, women as property, their policies on illegal immigration (forbidding immigrants to come to our country but paying them poorly and under the table for hard labor--essentially a form of indentured servitude where they can send them back when they've used them up). The military's employment policy is a form of slavery where the soldier gives up almost all rights in favor of team unity. I guess his party suddenly has a squeaky clean record on "humans as property."
3. "No one is worth more than another. No one is worth less than another."
See rebuttal number one. Anti-choicers value the unborn more than already living human beings (pro-war, pro-capital punishment). Worse than that, "life" in the womb gets better treatment than kids in and out of foster care, in orphanages or abusive homes, and in third world countries. If they really thought that no life were worth more than another, then they would advocate socialism and not a capitalist system that supports our classist system as it currently exists.
4. "We don't need to shoot each other"
...probably the only thing I agreed with that he said. At least he is openly advocating that his followers militantly pursue pro-choicers.
I guess my main issue with his morality argument is that his morality only applies to this one topic, not all topics. Selective morality is one of my pet peeves as far as politics is concerned. When religion and politics mix, BS ensues.
In all honesty, no one wants abortion to actually happen. No woman walks into an abortion clinic and thinks, "This is the happiest day of my life." Let's be realistic! Put aside morality and religion (the two are not the same) even arguments for or against the issue and just be reasonable for a moment. We need to work on the issues that often lead to unwanted pregnancies (thus abortions): incest, rape, accidents, and carelessness. The ultimate win-win situation is to almost eliminate the need for abortion in the first place: teach kids who are having sex anyway how to appropriately use contraceptives--don't continue abstinence only programs that don't work. There also needs to be bigger pull from all political parties for gender equality in hopes that sex crimes won't occur in the first place.
Last, let's all come to terms and agree that we are actually all equal instead of saying things that make some seem morally righteous for taking the "high road." "All life is equal"--if we're going to throw things out like that to make it seem like we're taking the morally high road, then we should mean it. Regard all life as sacred and equal: stop war, level the playing field for genders in order to discourage sex crimes, abolish capitol punishment, and stop making policies that hinder every human's pursuit of happiness.
I think I'll just categorize this as a fail in logic or morality...I can't decide which though.
