Abortion

Bravo, Chiroptera. I agree--and I wish more pro-choice people would be as forthright.Attempts to nuance choice inevitably destroy it. "My body, my choice" is a fundamental sovereignty; once that is infringed, every liberty is up for grabs. The freedom meant to be limited by anti-choice legislation is sexual: abortion, like birth control, is bad because you may be able to have sex without the punitive consequences of pregnancy, disease, or death.I'm waiting for the opposition to the HPV vaccine to gin up. I note that Ms. Miers insists that she has in fact not agreed (as recently reports suggest she had) with the SCOTUS decision that pushed the state out of a married couple's contraceptive decisions. I am perpetually shaking my head over conservatives' insistence that there is no right to privacy in the Constitution--are their supporters listening? Do they understand the import? Do they truly want legislators determining God's laws, and the state enforcing them?The evangelicals I speak with are honored to have their children in uniform sacrificed on Bush's altar to famlilial vengeance, oil, and WMD myths, and, if their daughters have "illicit" sex, they want the penalties of AIDS, pregnancy without safe abortion, and shame to be real hazards.Like the fanatic who does what God would do if He were in possession of all the facts, they strive to keep those girls from thwarting God's justice. It's amazing how much assistance they feel He needs down here.

Well, sure.It's like Rome's position on the taking of human life: totally opposed. Just as opposed to execution as abortion...well, the taking of innocent human life is esp. awful, even though none of us are innocent since we are all born in sin, and, gee, we're so focused on innocent not-innocents that we don't really have time to say much about prisons and fatal injections for guilty non-innocents, some of which are certainly innocent not-innocents convicted by fallible human courts.It does get complicated, trying to be both Godly and consistent; it's easier to just hate as directed.Maybe, if prison authorities let the condemned have a last night of sex, the right-to-(pre)life activists would get more active.Edit for shockingly bad grammar and a typo.This message has been edited by Omnivorous, 10-19-2005 02:52 PMThis message has been edited by Omnivorous, 10-19-2005 02:53 PM

Griswold is a boogeyman for the religious right: it is one of the cases with which they wink-and-nudge communicate in the mainstream media without tipping off moderates who don't know the code.Apparently, Attorney Miers left Senator Specter with the impression that she felt Griswold was sound, settled law. He said as much to reporters after their private meeting; she called to inform him that he had "misunderstood" her. He released a terse written statement saying he accepted her assertion that he had misunderstood her. Conservative pundits opposed to her nomination pointed out that Specter is fairly sophisticated on Constitutional issues and unlikely to misunderstand any comment on Griswold. Griswold, of course, is code for Roe v. Wade which found the same right to privacy.After insisting that no inquiry should be made into where a judge stands on Roe v. Wade, or any other issue that might come before the court, the religious right is now demanding proof that she would overturn Roe v. Wade--as though there were any doubt. The thing of great wonder is that there is great doubt among the religious right; as always, they seek certainty.Personally, I think overturning Roe v. Wade would be suicidal for the Republican Party, a classic case of be careful what you wish for...overturning that basic right to privacy, and turning women's reproductive rights over to the wingnuts in the individual states, would radicalize millions in the same fashion as Vietnam and the draft, and the upheaval would be even more bitter.

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IMHO

Perhaps you show some stain of moderateness.

Do you ski? Climb? Hang glide? Live in a mugger-prone neighborhood? Like red meat or single malt scotch?Pay up, sir.Beware of risk-based user fees, IMHO. That way lies the dictatorship of the cocooned mundane.Also, teasing out risk differentials, and allowing insurers to cherry-pick the safer folk, is one of the ways by which the neocons look to destroy Social Security.

Yet I find many of your adventure activities unreasonably imprudent--and those people who jump out of perfectly good planes!If you should not have to pay the additional costs incurred by smokers, I shouldn't have to pay the additional cost you introduce to the insurance system via your inherently reckless behaviors (relative to, say, bowling or billiards).I do not think it likely that you have calculated the risks of your activities, compared them to the risks of smoking (or drinking, or eating wantonly, or having many sexual partners, or trekking in Central America), and then decided your activities are acceptably safe while these others are not.Rather, you decided what you wished to do, then did it as safely as you could manage while not destroying the pleasure you take from the activity.Whatever moral/ethical gloss you apply, or how many helmets you wear, the fact remains that your activities subject you to risks beyond those who eschew those activities. If we are going to risk-audit insurance payers and charge smokers higher premiums, you should pay more as well.Which I oppose, of course.

Indeed.Also, I fear the Auditors...