{"id":2610,"date":"2010-09-09T08:13:24","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T12:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2610"},"modified":"2010-09-13T12:56:37","modified_gmt":"2010-09-13T16:56:37","slug":"memo-to-gop-straight-talk-needed-on-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/09\/09\/memo-to-gop-straight-talk-needed-on-abortion\/","title":{"rendered":"Memo to GOP: Straight talk needed on abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"

The two Republicans vying for the 23rd district House seat have made a lot of hay over the idea of being pro-life.<\/p>\n

Doug Hoffman insists that he’s the “only” pro-life candidate in the race, while Matt Doheny argues that he would receive a “100% pro-life rating” while serving in Congress.<\/p>\n

In simple layman’s terms, that means both politicians believe that abortion should be illegal and unavailable as a safe, private option for most women most of the time.<\/p>\n

(Doheny believes that adult women should be allowed to choose an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.)<\/p>\n

The wrinkle here is that neither is willing to discuss how that change would affect the lives of women or how it should be enforced.<\/p>\n

“I have never said that I was going to become a congressman to make abortion illegal,” Hoffman said, during their debate this week.<\/p>\n

He argued that the courts, not Congress, should settle the matter of abortion rights.<\/p>\n

“I never said in public that I thought it should be made illegal,” he repeated. “I’ve said that I am pro-life. The courts have made that decision. If it gets overruled it’s going to be a court decision for how they do it.”<\/p>\n

Doheny sounded a similar note:\u00a0 “In terms of your specifics there, I certainly haven’t addressed any of those issues.”<\/p>\n

So before we go on, a couple of facts.<\/p>\n

Abortion is an incredibly common medical procedure in the U.S.\u00a0 According to the widely respected Guttmacher Institute<\/a>, nearly a quarter of all pregnancies in our country are ended by a voluntary abortion.<\/p>\n

Each year, doctors perform more than a million abortions.\u00a0 One in every three American women will choose to have an abortion at some point in their lifetime.<\/p>\n

Despite all that, the desire to ban and criminalize abortion is a perfectly legitimate position.<\/p>\n

Millions of Americans view abortion as something akin to murder, because the unborn fetus or baby dies. Even many people who count themselves as “pro-choice” are troubled by this fact.<\/p>\n

So it’s not only reasonable but necessary to have an ongoing debate over the morality and medical ethics of abortion.<\/p>\n

What’s not reasonable is to duck the tough and thorny facts that surround the issue.<\/p>\n

If the position held by Doheny and Hoffman wins the day, a medical procedure chosen by tens of millions of American women — good, decent and law-abiding people — will become a criminal act.<\/p>\n

The doctors performing this medical procedure will also become criminals.\u00a0 So what does that mean?\u00a0 How would the ban be enforced? What should the penalties be?<\/p>\n

What would we do about women in our communities who want to go across the border into Canada to have abortions?\u00a0 Would we deny them the right to travel?\u00a0 Would be prosecute them when they return?<\/p>\n

For the candidates to claim the “pro-life” label, while also insisting that they want no involvement in the real-world repercussions of their stance, is an unacceptable dodge.<\/p>\n

It’s also a dodge to suggest that the courts should sort this mess out.<\/p>\n

If Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court — an event which appears more likely than ever before — it’s a near certainty that Congress will consider new Federal laws that dictate the availability of abortion, and set criminal penalties for those who violate the law.<\/p>\n

So let’s have it straight.\u00a0 In the pro-life America envisioned by Doug Hoffman and Matt Doheny, what happens to a woman who has an abortion?\u00a0 What happens to her doctor?<\/p>\n

Until we have the answers to those questions, we don’t have an honest debate or an honest campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The two Republicans vying for the 23rd district House seat have made a lot of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[886],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2612,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2610\/revisions\/2612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}