My Great-grandmother Died

[4588686]

Via a botched 'back-alley' abortion. Her family was desperately poor and they didn't have regular access to contraception. My great-grandfather wasn't a very kind man.



Pro-Life 2012!

Edited October 28, 2012 by Hasan

[Jaime]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1351443014' post='2499116']
Via a botched 'back-alley' abortion. Her family was desperately poor and they didn't have regular access to contraception. My great-grandfather wasn't a very kind man.



Pro-Life 2012!
[/quote]

So did your great aunt or uncle. You forgot to mention that. You lost two family members in the tragedy

[Lilllabettt]

There are a lot of real problems in your story.
Desperate poverty, for example.
Misogyny
Spousal abuse.
But Instead of addressing the structural injustice, the focus is on "easing" the symptoms with something like abortion.
That way we can all go along our merry ways without the inconvenience of having to stare oppression in the face.
Because the perfect antidote for violence is more violence.
This is fairly typical of the abortion rights movement.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Lilllabettt

[Lilllabettt]

btw, my brother died in an abortion performed by a lisenced doctor in a modern hospital.
The room where he died was sterile and the forceps used to crush his skull were top of the line.

[4588686]

[quote name='Lilllabettt' timestamp='1351443983' post='2499124']
There are a lot of real problems in your story.
Desperate poverty, for example.
Misogyny
Spousal abuse.
But Instead of addressing the structural injustice, the focus is on "easing" the symptoms with something like abortion.
[/quote]



I am not ignoring the structural issues. That was the reason that I provided that context rather than just announcing that she died in a back alley abortion. She had an abortion out of desperation. Because she didn't know how she could feed another child. The modern pro-life movement, at least on an institutional scale, almost universally supports men like Paul Ryan, individuals who propose policies that lead to those very desperate circumstances. Supporting the elimination of poverty programs, while fighting to make contraception harder to access for poor women, while outlawing safe abortions is a rally grotesque combination. If the pro-life really wants to end abortion then I am happy for them to try. But just outlawing abortion is not a serious position. It won't end abortions and it will just increase the suffering in the world. Abortion is a symptom of something gone wrong.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Hasan

[Lilllabettt]

What you fail to consider is the possibility that people like Paul Ryan judge the government to be the single greatest tool available to the wealthy and powerful in their efforts to oppress the poor.

I have served the poor for most of my working life, in non-profits and in the government. There are some things the government does well for them. But the government, and many of its "poverty programs" are no friend of the poor - Certainly NOT of poor women. That is my opinion.

[4588686]

[quote name='Lilllabettt' timestamp='1351445957' post='2499153']
What you fail to consider is the possibility that people like Paul Ryan judge the government to be the single greatest tool available to the wealthy and powerful in their efforts to oppress the poor.[/QUOTE]

I don't fail to consider it. Simply because he claims that his policies are somehow secretly good for the poor doesn't make it so. That's the same croutons the conservatives have been pushing since back in the days when William f. Buckley was trying to convince his readers that keeping the ignorant blacks out of the polls was actually a good thing (although he was later kind enough to add while debating James Baldwin the caveat that he would also like to strip a lot of poor whites of their voting rights as well) Paul Ryan's policy proposals would be horrendous for the poor. Cutting anti-poverty programs while doing nothing to restructure the economy in a way that allows the working poor to get a subsistence salary is not a serious proposal for helping people. Nor is really anything that the republicans have proposed since Reconstruction, at which time they were a really wonderful political party. Can the government be used to oppress the poor and benefit the wealthy. Absolutely. And the republicans have consistently implemented just those sorts of policies that benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor. And that is not a partisan statement. That is born out by the data.


[url="http://www.amazon.com/Unequal-Democracy-Political-Economy-Gilded/dp/0691136637"]http://www.amazon.co...d/dp/0691136637[/url]

[QUOTE]I have served the poor for most of my working life, in non-profits and in the government. There are some things the government does well for them. But the government, and many of its "poverty programs" are no friend of the poor - Certainly NOT of poor women. That is my opinion.
[/quote]


Which programs are no friend to the poor and how are they not? I would genuinely be interested in your opinion.

Are most anti-poverty programs positively good for the poor? No. Not really. America has a pretty awful social safety net. But they do help keep people alive and are a lifeline to a lot of families who would have nothing else without them.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Hasan

[Winchester]

Paul Ryan's plan is a joke. There are no horrendous cuts. The damned thing adds 5.1 trillion to the debt over the first ten years, and there's no balanced budget until 2040.

Nobody believes in unintended consequences, anymore. Poverty decline has leveled off since the Great Society the essence of cow.

[dUSt]

My friend died in a botched burglary.
I don't want burglary to be legal.

[4588686]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1351453231' post='2499189']
Paul Ryan's plan is a joke. There are no horrendous cuts. The damned thing adds 5.1 trillion to the debt over the first ten years, and there's no balanced budget until 2040.[/QUOTE]

There will be a lot of horrendous cuts. Just not to the programs that substantially contribute to the actual deficit. Which is why his program, while pretty savage to the poor, does very little to alleviate the actual deficit.

[Winchester]

nvm

Edited October 28, 2012 by Winchester

[Aloysius]

actually that is a big part of the problem of Paul Ryan's budget. It targets entitlements first, and it doesn't actually provide for any real cuts. Which makes it lose/lose.

The right direction is to focus on the bigger fish to fry first rather than focusing primarily or solely upon entitlements if you want to make real cuts. And if you are going to go after entitlements, it better be in a substantial way that actually fixes problems; otherwise you're just taking away things people have grown to rely on while continuing to have a wasteful government anyway... lose/lose situation. That's why Paul Ryan's budget is a joke and a fraud.

If we want to do something about the budget problems we have, we need to allow for real cuts focusing on the most bloated and wasteful portions of government spending first, and those real cuts need to include the sacred cows of both sides (defense spending and entitlement spending), and it's got to find a way to ease us off of entitlements but maintain the ones that people have grown dependent while easing them out of the system. It's got to be smart and substantial, otherwise we're wasting time and just hurting people--that's what the Ryan budget does, just wastes time, hurts people, and discredits conservativism, all the while maintaining the systematic wastefulness of the government system by pretending to do real cuts.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Aloysius

[4588686]

[quote name='Aloysius' timestamp='1351455949' post='2499211']
actually that is a big part of the problem of Paul Ryan's budget. It targets entitlements first, and it doesn't actually provide for any real cuts. Which makes it lose/lose.

The right direction is to focus on the bigger fish to fry first rather than focusing primarily or solely upon entitlements if you want to make real cuts. And if you are going to go after entitlements, it better be in a substantial way that actually fixes problems; otherwise you're just taking away things people have grown to rely on while continuing to have a wasteful government anyway... lose/lose situation. That's why Paul Ryan's budget is a joke and a fraud.

If we want to do something about the budget problems we have, we need to allow for real cuts focusing on the most bloated and wasteful portions of government spending first, and those real cuts need to include the sacred cows of both sides (defense spending and entitlement spending), and it's got to find a way to ease us off of entitlements but maintain the ones that people have grown dependent while easing them out of the system. It's got to be smart and substantial, otherwise we're wasting time and just hurting people--that's what the Ryan budget does, just wastes time, hurts people, and discredits conservativism, all the while maintaining the systematic wastefulness of the government system by pretending to do real cuts.
[/quote]

Yep