Friday, April 1, 2016

Does Donald Trump's vision of 'great' include return to old days on abortion?

I’d have had more respect for Donald Trump (not that I think much of the man to begin with) if he had stuck to his guns and maintained his original views expressed with regards to the issue of abortion.

Does this vision of 'great' include returning to the days of old with regards to terminating a pregnancy?
You know, the ones where he came out and admitted that a repeal of abortion in this country would naturally result in “some form of punishment” for the women who persisted in terminating pregnancies.

SUCH A VIEW is abhorrent. It is offensive and tacky. It is repulsive and completely antithetical to where our society is now and the direction it is headed.

Yet it is the way things once were. Back before Roe vs. Wade (the Supreme Court decision that legitimized abortion as a legitimate medical option), women could be brought to the attention of the police for criminal investigation if their miscarriage caught the suspicion of someone – medical or not.

The women would have to justify that it wasn’t their fault the pregnancy came to an end.

As for the women whose situations in life caused them to want to end a pregnancy, they knew they would have to take on a choice that would put them at risk of legal troubles for the rest of their lives should their secret become known.

NOW I HAVE to admit this attitude seems bizarre to me – particularly since I was 7 years old when the Supreme Court of the United States took its actions. The idea that an abortion was ever a matter for the police sounds like some sort of morbid fairy tale.

And this ‘tale’ is what Trump touched on when he opened his mouth to discuss abortion, in reaction to questions from MSNBC.

Because it is clear that if we had a repeal of the Supreme Court ruling that overturned all the old laws that criminalized abortion, there are certain states that would probably rush to reinstate some sort of penalty for anyone who thinks to end a pregnancy.

It probably would be the same states that now are all too eager to offer up laws protecting religious officials from the “discrimination” they “suffer” from having to treat decently people who aren’t exactly like themselves.

WE’D DEVELOP A patchwork of states where one can terminate a pregnancy, and others where they can’t. Actually, similar now to how some states throw up so many roadblocks to the procedure that it’s next to impossible for women to obtain.

Of course, the anti-abortion types of today will spew a certain rhetoric – claiming that all they’re doing is protecting women from having to deal with the “back alley butchers,” those un-licensed doctors who would be performing the procedure and putting women’s health at risk.

All too similar to the cheap talk that Trump spewed in the hours after realizing his talk about punishing women who want to terminate a pregnancy was going to have political and social repercussions.

It seems Trump thinks he can get away with slandering Mexicans and Muslims, and probably thought he could do the same with women. Only to have the backlash become too intense so he backed off.

WHICH IS WHAT makes me lose what little respect I have for the candidate. At least he initially was being honest about his abortion viewpoint not being concerned in the least about the situation of the women involved.

Because to be honest, if people were really concerned about protecting women from those alleged medical people doing abortions that can easily turn deadly, they’d be among the biggest proponents of legalization. Having them done in the legitimate hospitals and clinics where the whole process is above-board.

That is how we make it safe. That is how we eliminate the risk. All the other talk that usually comes up around the issue is from people who desire to butt themselves into a pregnant women’s private business.

Of course, it’s probably all a byproduct of that insipid “Make America Great Again” cap goes around wearing – as though he thinks it makes him look like a regular-kind-of-guy.

IT APPEALS TO a certain mentality of person who wants to think things were once better off for people just like himself, because other types of people have taken things away from him.

Those “types” of people probably include women, whom these people would like to put back into a form of subjugation.

What better way to do that by thinking the day will come when we can go back to calling the cops on women who are suddenly missing that baby bump in their bellies.

Not realizing that the resulting image will appear as ridiculous as those old “Dragnet” television episodes where Jack Webb’s “Joe Friday” character cracks down on the “hippie freaks” who threaten the existence of the “society” that Trump talks of wanting to return to.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The law, as it now exists in Illinois with regard to abortion. Only the ideologues think we need a radical change backwards.

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