Abortion 2008 and the Price of Tea in China

One of my personal pet-peeves in any.. well EVERY election is the topic of abortion.

The most significant fact of the matter is that it's used by both sides of the argument when neither side is honestly approaching the subject matter. In the end, this simply means that nothing but discourse will follow. The voters find a wedge driven between themselves and every other issue in play.

The politicians have to be doing this on purpose. Why else would they continue the historical argument when both sides know they are not talking about the same thing? It would seem it's a valuable tool in obfuscating the real issues. Is immigration, war, oil prices, or the housing market getting to uncomfortable? Well, let's get Americans fired up about an emotional argument that has no end and we won't have to talk about anything uncomfortable!

Wait, did I just insinuate that abortion is a comfortable topic for politicians? Compared to the other topics, it is comfortable in that it requires no answer. It just requires rhetoric. The other issues require "something" of substance that will later be held as a test of pass or fail.

The pro-life side of the argument is arguing when life begins. The pro-Choice side is arguing that women have a right to choose. Can anybody see why this argument goes nowhere?

The pro-life crowd for some reason thinks they will convince the pro-choice crowd that live begins at a specific point in time. They don't understand that the pro-choice side isn't listening, will not listen, and probably wouldn't care if they did. Yet the pro-life crowd still engages in an argument knowing this.

The pro-choice crowd for some reason thinks the pro-life crowd will cease to think that the life of a baby is important just because they have started talking about rights rather than talk about the baby that the pro-life people are referring to. Yet, they still engage in the argument.

The crux of the abortion argument should be out of Election politics until a couple bits of information can be determined.

1. When does life begin. - without this defined, nobody is going to be talking about the same subject.
2. What rights do people have and when is the appropriate time to exercise those rights. - When does the "womans right to choose" (as per bumper stickers littering berkeley, ca) interfere with the life of another? pro-life would say her right to choose happens when she chooses to engage in pregnancy causing activities w/o taking responsibility for the results of that particular biological process. pro-choice would say it happens at any point convenient. I'm not sure if this includes up to 18yrs or possibly after.

In short, the issue is a diversionary tactic used by both partys to polarize voters over an issue that has no political solution. If Roe v. Wade were to be overturned today, the American people (even if it were a minority) would not allow Abortion to become illegal and revert to back alley practices.

I'm not suggesting that Abortion is right or wrong. I'm simply suggesting that it's a diversionary tactic used by politicians to get us antsy about something other than what we're hiring them for.