"How he balances those two ideas in his head is beyond me."

Not sure how Kinsley balances those two ideas, but I do know how it can be done - it's called charity. People are free to give as much money or other assistance as they wants to the poor, with absolutely no need for any government involvement.

Being a conservative there isn't much for me to comment on except that I am not a religious conservative. I'm a constitutional conservative. BUT, my Parents voted Democrat for most of their lives and the last 2 presidential elections (2000 - Nader and 2004 - Bush) they have not. There are many factors involved in their voting change but the primary reason in my view is they just don't believe the Democrat Candidates anymore. These are rural middle of the road people who raised 9 children and are Catholic. They do notice when candidates says they are prolife but then block a ban on late term abortions. People aren't idiots contrary to what many of the Democrat Party think.

We Democrats don't think people are idiots, just that we are more intelligent than most. Before somebody snaps and calls me names, I am kidding.

"They do notice when candidates says they are prolife but then block a ban on late term abortions. "

But do they notice whether or not a proposed ban on a surgical procedures would allow exceptions for non-viable pregnancies and/or to save the life/health of the patient?

It IS possible to be pro-life and yet object to having Big Government interfere in private patient/doctor decisions, ya' know.

Superb. Simply suberb.

The Nazis were horrifyingly competent, after all, and came close to conquering Europe by consistently overwhelming frequently incompetent opposition.

I used to think Kinsley was one of the more intelligent conservatives. Maybe he is.

"They do notice when candidates says they are prolife but then block a ban on late term abortions."

Just curious, but do they notice when candidates says they are prolife but then vote to ban funding for medical research that could potentially save many lives, start a pre-emptive war based on false information that results in the deaths of thousands of human beings, and allow the execution of mentally retarded prisoners?

Your comment just reinforces the perception that "pro-life" is only from conception to birth. After that, oh well.

Heather,

I'm curious how he balances his belief that government should enforce his ideal of fairness with the idea government should let people do what he wants. Kinsley isn't interested in private charity helping people, he's interested in government programs.

As for the supposed hypocracy of pro-life people, while I'm not pro-life myself, I'm going to stand up for them. They honestly believe that a fetus is a person, and that abortion is therefore murder. You can certainly disagree with the base premise that life begins at conception, but there's no question that if you stipulate that premise, the logic of opposing abortion is clear. Therefore, abortion is no longer a private discussion between a woman and her doctor, because the child doesn't have an advocate. In that same vein, medical research involving fetal tissue is akin to arguing that we should be allowed to kill people because we might be able to extract valuable medical resources from them for other people.

Again, I don't believe the premise, but that's not what matters; pro-life people generally do believe that premise, and their stands are therefore not hypocritical. You're free to believe they're wrong (of course, you're free to continue they're hypocritical, too), but I think cliams of hypocracy are incorrect, and simply lead to bad feelings on both sides.

I agree that they believe the premise that life begins at conception, but I have a problem with the overall stances of many of my pro-life friends. They seem to want the government to make sure that all conceived children are born, but don't want the government to follow up and make sure those same children have decent lives.

Scott,

That's because there is a major difference between those two tasks. If you accept the idea that life begins at conception, than preventing abortions is about crime: abortion=murder. That doesn't make it the responsibility of the government to ensure that those children have decent lives (since, among other issues, who gets to decide what constitutes a 'decent' life, and where does the money come from to pay for them?) any more than the government's responsibility to provide police services means that once a cop protects you from a murderer he now has to make sure that your other needs are addressed. It's a question of the purpose of government.

"You're free to believe they're wrong (of course, you're free to continue they're hypocritical, too), but I think cliams of hypocracy are incorrect, and simply lead to bad feelings on both sides."

I understand the basis of their objection to abortion and stem cell research. I respect their right to their opinion and totally support their right to not have abortions and to refuse medical treatment related to stem cells.

That said, if it's not hypocracy, how then do you explain their volume and intensity when it comes to abortion vs. the seeming lack of outrage over the death penalty*, civilian casualties in Iraq, people dying for lack of medical insurance, genocide in Africa, and other life/death issues? For example, the "pro-life" Catholic Church has been quick to ex-communicate pro-choice Democrats, but I don't believe there has even been any discussion of ex-communicating pro-death penalty or pro-war republicans. It’s a curious imbalance.

Do pro-life activists in general spend as much time and money trying to save the lives of living children in Africa as they do trying to save the contents of IVF labs or of a white American woman's uterus?

Do pro-lifers think it's better to throw away unused IVF embryos than to use them to save an actual person's life? It seems that way - they want a ban on medical research, but they don't seem to be working as hard to make sure every IVF zygote becomes a shiny happy baby. And what about the lives of people with diabetes, Parkinson’s, etc. – are they of value?

If you have an explanation for the inconsistency other than hypocracy, I would be very interested to hear it.

(Just read your reply to Scott – to clarify, I’m not asking about government involvement but about the involvement of those individuals who supposedly value human life.)

*I'm not a death penalty opponent, just using this list as an example.

It seems to come down to two issues: one, pro-life is shorthand for people who want to make abortion illegal, just as pro-choice is shorthand for people who want to make and keep it legal. Are pro-choice people hypocritical if they don't object when people's choices other than the ability to have an abortion are taken away from them? I'd argue no, because pro-choice is just a label used for simplicity. Just because you're pro-choice in the political sense, it does not logically follow that you believe that no choice should be restricted. By that same token, if you're pro-life, that doesn't mean you can't believe that there is a difference between protecting an (in your view) innocent child and executing someone who has violated the law. The bottom line on the issue for both sides is the legality of abortion; asking why they're not spending their energy in other venues is a non sequitur.

Further (this is the second point referred to above), everyone has to choose which battles to fight. Is abortion really more important than the war? I don't think so, but obviously there are many people who do (and since importance is relative, there's no right answer there). Two people may both believe in the sanctity of life, but one may choose to express that by fighting for restrictions on abortion while the other chooses to fight for better medical care. They're both sincere, they're just choosing different paths and priorities.

In other words, some human lives are more valuable/ more worth fighting for than others. I certainly can't fault anyone for thinking that way - I'm pretty sure most of us (myself included) would have an easy time deciding who to rescue first if our grandmother, Saddam Hussein, and a petri dish full of embryos were trapped inside a burning building.

Pro-lifers are entitled to their opinions, and I'm entitled to mine. Personally I happen to think less of those people who value the "life" of garbage (such as unwanted, leftover IVF embryos destined to be thrown away) over the very real life of my father. And personally, I will continue to make my own decisions about whether or not to have babies, with or without their approval.

I just have to add one comment on the abortion issue. I would like to see no abortions but do believe that for the first six months of a pregnancy the women should decide if she wants to carry the child to term. What I do object to is killing babies who could live outside the womb. It seems incongruous to me that some doctors are fighting to develop ways to save the life of premies who are six months old while others are blatantly killing them at the mothers request. The problem with exceptions to the late term abortions is that some doctors will always be willing to sign off on the issue of the mothers health if the woman wants an abortion even when there is no medical necessity for it. This is where the pro-lifers have a problem.

Should pregnant women with life-threatening problems be denied medical care just because some pro-lifers know someone who knew someone who had a cousin who got an abortion at 8.99 months just so she could fit into her prom dress that night?

Personally, I don't know any women who deliberately stayed pregnant until their third trimester, and then decided to have a costly, risky procedure just for the thrill of it. If I did, I'm not sure I'd consider them ideal candidates for parenthood. The few cases I know of were heartbreaking - women who got to be that far along in their pregnancies because they really wanted to have a baby, but something went tragically wrong.

I can't agree with making it illegal for doctors to save these women's lives/health just because some doctor out there might, if given the opportunity, perform an abortion for reasons that uninvolved parties consider trivial.

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