With the announcement the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office might seek homicide charges against Ariel Castro because he beat one of the women he held captive until she miscarried, the fetus-huggers are turning this horrible story of abduction, rape, and violence in to some gruesome anti-choice commercial because they can't help themselves.
Never mind that we are dealing with two different laws- abortion law on the one hand; criminal law dealing with homicide on the other - and in the specific case in question the legal question of responsibility for the destruction of the fetus hinges on consent, specifically the consent of the woman. Never mind that so much of the talk on the right talks about "aborting babies", which doesn't happen, ever. Babies are born then murdered, as in the Gosnell case. In Cleveland, a psychopath beat a pregnant woman until she miscarried, which under Ohio law is covered by homicide statutes; it doesn't make the fetus a "baby", just a beaten, dead fetus.
Along with science and education and empathy and compassion and family and human sexuality and economics and race relations and civil rights and American history, it isn't so much that folks on the right don't understand so much as they find this a convenient stick with which to beat others who disagree with them. Pointing out the murky waters of reality in which we all swim doesn't really matter all that much, because, as in most other things, they are far more interested in themselves being right and their opponents wrong than anything as messy as facts and law and real human lives.
Most folks who nod their heads approvingly don't quite get that it is precisely the choice and consent of he woman that makes all the difference in the world between a legal abortion and an illegal homicide (at least under Ohio law). Which is why it's called "pro-choice". That's why we are a nation of laws, not "morals" or "values".
The howling and frothing and charges of "baby killer" will continue, regardless of reality. Because, twas ever thus.
Never mind that we are dealing with two different laws- abortion law on the one hand; criminal law dealing with homicide on the other - and in the specific case in question the legal question of responsibility for the destruction of the fetus hinges on consent, specifically the consent of the woman. Never mind that so much of the talk on the right talks about "aborting babies", which doesn't happen, ever. Babies are born then murdered, as in the Gosnell case. In Cleveland, a psychopath beat a pregnant woman until she miscarried, which under Ohio law is covered by homicide statutes; it doesn't make the fetus a "baby", just a beaten, dead fetus.
Along with science and education and empathy and compassion and family and human sexuality and economics and race relations and civil rights and American history, it isn't so much that folks on the right don't understand so much as they find this a convenient stick with which to beat others who disagree with them. Pointing out the murky waters of reality in which we all swim doesn't really matter all that much, because, as in most other things, they are far more interested in themselves being right and their opponents wrong than anything as messy as facts and law and real human lives.
Most folks who nod their heads approvingly don't quite get that it is precisely the choice and consent of he woman that makes all the difference in the world between a legal abortion and an illegal homicide (at least under Ohio law). Which is why it's called "pro-choice". That's why we are a nation of laws, not "morals" or "values".
The howling and frothing and charges of "baby killer" will continue, regardless of reality. Because, twas ever thus.
