Why Does the Right To Choose Only Belong to the Woman

If you ask the average pro-choice proponent about the right to safe abortions, they will tell you that the right to privacy guaranteed in the constitution gives a woman the right to do what she pleases with her body. If you ask a pro-life proponent, they will probably tell you that the baby has a right to live and therefore abortion should be either illegal or extremely limited.

The interesting item missing from these competing points of view seems to be the rights of the father. It could be argued that much as slaves were considered to be less than a whole person in the eyes of the law, so too are fathers.

A woman who is raped should have unfettered access to an abortion. All of her choices were made for her and it could easily be considered cruel to force her to have a rapist’s baby. Also, exceptions should be made for incest because of the known health risks inherent in inbreeding. In the case of health of the mother, each person should be allowed to protect himself or herself even if it is from a seemingly innocent being inside of them.

In cases where none of these exceptions would apply, pro-choice proponents would have you believe that somehow a woman must make a choice to terminate as if that was the only choice along the path that could have avoided the current situation. This is where the hypocrisy of choice comes in.

An 18-year-old girl has sex and gets pregnant. She chooses to abort because she doesn’t want her life to be ruined and she gets a giant do over in life. If she decides she wants to keep the baby she tells the father and thus begins his lifelong responsibility to the child, which could just as easily be construed as ruining his life.

When these two hypothetical lovebirds decided to have sex, they both made a choice. Now suddenly one person has the ability to impose her will on the other. If she chooses to abort and he wants the baby, tough. If she chooses to keep the baby and he doesn’t want a child then he has just received an eighteen-year minimum sentence of child support. This is not to say that a father shouldn’t take care of his children, he should. The father only has a one-third vote here since the woman gets two votes – the first being to have sex and the second to have a child. For all the talk of equal protection and the equality of men and women, this seems grossly unjust.

To be truly fair women would have to either share the right to choose or shoulder the burden of parenthood alone should the father decide he does not want a child. The protests from women of equality are decidedly absent in this area.

Full Disclosure
I am pro-life although as I am sure it is clear in the essay I make exceptions under reasonable cases. This essay is not an attempt to debate whether abortion is right or wrong. It simply attempts to debate what it means to be pro-choice. I think this topic is probably controversial enough without the need to wade into the typical murder vs. choice debate. This is not to say both sides aren’t without their hypocrisy. As George Carlin once said, “Did you ever notice how most pro-lifers are for the death penalty.”

It is suppose to suck to be poor

This month has brought some interesting perspective to something I have been thinking about lately. When the federal government was not planning on extending unemployment benefits my unemployed sister was distraught. She did not know where she would get the money to pay her rent. Now because she is my sister I care if she gets kicked out on the streets. If I want to help her I should help her and I have in the past. Why should I be required to help everyone in the same situation though.

This may sound a bit harsh at first but for every person that thinks the rich are getting away with everything let me be the first to tell you that to someone out there you are rich.

I remember a time when I bought a bag of cookies for food because they were the most calorie dense food I could afford in bulk. Back then I envied the person that had enough money to buy food whenever they wanted but I never blamed them for what they had. I didn't want them to not have it. I simply wanted to have that as well.

As time passed I made it back to a place where I could afford food as well as electricity and life was better. It was about this time I found myself wanting a nice car and to own a house. These were all things I would eventually achieve, not because I took them from the people that had more than me but because I worked hard and got a better job.

This situation repeated itself and it continues to repeat itself today. Although today my goal is not always more money like it was back then. My point is that I got a better life by hard work, not by cursing those above me that had more.

Back to unemployment. You had a job and you lost it, it sucks I know, it has happened to me. If you want to hold out for the same type of job you had before while collecting unemployment I have no problem with that since your employer paid unemployment insurance payments for you and you are collecting on that policy. Once that runs out though you should no longer have that luxury. Clean toilets or flip burgers or whatever it is you have to do to make ends meet until you get a job resembling your old one. I should not have to pay through my federal taxes for you to sit at home hoping for your job to come through.

Way back in ancient times I delivered pizza and I guarantee that if I lost my job and unemployment ran out that would be the first thing I would do until I got another job in my chosen career. I would bet that most who complain that the feds won't take care of them fast enough would lose their minds if they had fifty percent of their money taken away in taxes like many of the actual producers in this country do.

As for the title of this post. It is supposed to suck to be poor so that you don't want to be that way. Go out and earn some money. Instead of the socialist "to each according to his need" try "to each according to his ability." Sometimes people do need a hand but it should be people that care about them lending that hand and not the federal government. If you don't have anyone that cares enough to lend that hand perhaps you should examine why that is.

I must admit I am a bit sick of the health care debate(no pun intended). I want to ignore it but I feel like the fate of my country hangs in the balance this weekend. Anyone that is foolish enough to think that the elections in the fall will matter one bit once this travesty is signed into law are either foolish or disingenuous.

As I am sure President Obama would tell you, creating a massive government entitlement program is hard work. What he won't say is that dismantling one is next to impossible. Dismantling any government program seems to be a near impossible task and so who wins in November is irrelevant if the bill becomes law.

Many are upset with the so called deem and pass method of attempting to get this bill to become law. I would be less irritated about a procedural maneuver if this was something the public supported and it really was just republicans getting in the way with their 41 vote filibuster proof majority. One is hard pressed however to find a poll of the public where the majority supports it. Everyone agrees that health care is broken but still a majority disapprove of this bill.

It should come as no surprise that most Republicans hate this bill. In general republicans hate big government and this bill certainly qualifies as big government. The problem for the Dems is that the bill is so big it has lots of stuff in it that people on their side of the aisle hate as well.

I understand the difficulty of mandating changes to preexisting condition laws without near universal coverage. If there were no preexisting condition clauses why buy health insurance until you get sick. But when the President comes on tv and says that we can save 500 billion in waste from medicare I say great, let's do it. Why do we have to pass a gigantic bill to do this. If he knows where the fraud and waste is why not just go eliminate it now. Save some money and then we can talk about spending some for a change. That is how the budget works at my house and I suggest the feds do the same.

Drug Ads on TV

I hate ads for prescription drugs on television. Unfortunately I also believe in freedom of speech so I have a hard time saying we should simply ban the ads. I think a workable solution to this problem could be trading a couple of years of extra patent protection in exchange for zero advertising.

Whether people like to admit it these drug companies spend enormous amounts of money to create drugs that in many cases save lives or greatly improve them. It is only natural that they want a return on their investment. I think providing the extra patent protection would provide them with the incentive to agree not to advertise on television and in magazines. I think I would make an exception for say diabetes drugs in a diabetes magazine.

I would also favor the creation(assuming it does not exist) of a central repository of information on drugs where doctors, and patients if they so choose, could go to look up information on treatments for specific conditions. To have your drug listed here all statements would have to be verified by an uninterested third party. This would be paid for by the drug companies. When a new treatment becomes available the company bringing it to market would have to specifically state the benefits over existing medications. These statements would also need to be verified by Doctor's that do not have a financial interest in the drug companies or would benefit in any other way.

Companies exist to make money and it is ridiculous to think otherwise. We should use the profit motive to properly shape desired behavior.

Idiocracy moves into our government

I for one think the movie Idiocracy should be remade with none other than out Director of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano as the Duhhrector of Homeland Security. So according to Janet "the system worked", well in fairness that is the world according to Janet before she realized how ridiculous a statement that was and stated the following day that she was taken out of context and clearly the system did not work.

She also says the traveling public is very very safe. How can we be very safe when a man the we were aware could be a terrorist was allowed to get on a plane with a BOMB. I can't get on a plane without taking my shoes off because some fool tried to put a bomb in his shoe but this guy can bring a bomb on a plane even though he was on a watch list.

It seems as though the only thing that is keeping us safe is the incompetence of the bombers. If this bomb had worked we would have 300 dead people on our hands. This woman has no clue about anything. How in the world is she in charge of our homeland security. Hopefully Obama is asking for her resignation as we speak. We can not afford to have this level of incompetence at the highest levels of our government.

It is time we institute some basic set of qualifications for our top Government posts. The President(and I don't just mean the current one) must make selections based on experience and the ability to do the job. The Senate must uphold its responsibility and approve people worthy of being approved for positions not based on their political background but based on their ability to do the job they are being asked to do. We the people must also respond by demanding qualified people in these jobs and hold the President and Senate accountable when basic standards are not met.

I have had it with North Korea

I am not a person that wants war but I have had about enough of this clown. He keeps talking smack and I for one would like to lob a missle or two at his presidential palaces and see what he does. My guess is that he would do absolutely nothing and while I am sure his friends in China and Russia might "condemn" our actions, I seriously doubt they would care enough to do anything more than that. The best would be if we could simultaneously bomb all his palaces and drop thousands of tons of food into the country.

Of course I suppose we could also wait for his son to take over and see if he is any more reasonable but considering half of his genetic material coms from Kim I would guess it is highly unlikely.At the very least I hope his son has better taste in sunglasses.

The priorities in this country are screwed....

Michael Jackson is dead and apparently it is a national event. Lets assume that the stuff about kid touching is not true and just focus on the good things. He gave us some good music, sure, but the reactions of people shock me. Presidents get this kind of news coverage, singers really shouldn't. These people call themselves reporters but what exactly are they reporting. A guy died, probably of natural causes, although some were speculating otherwise. In all honesty, who really cares?

The woman pictured was allegedly shot by Iranian government forces. Unfortunately for her she didn't win 13 Grammies or invent the Moonwalk. All she did was protest an evil government that guns people down when they don't accept the results of a fixed election. The balance in coverage between these two events is sickening. The way she stares into the camera as she dies is an image I doubt very much that I will soon forget.

Let's try this again

I am such a slacker I keep posting a day or two and then walking away. THis time I am going to try to be better about posting daily. Right now I think the best place for money is in the UltraShort etfs from proshares. My personal favorite is SDS. I have been in and out of that a few times over the last month. If I had a 401k that I needed money from soon I think I would go into all cash. I think we need to get to at least dow 7700 before things have a hope of turning around. Unfortunately I think we will go much lower. Here is how I see it playing out from here.

Stocks will continue to trend lower. As more people feel(or actually are) wiped out by this they will sharply reduce spending. Look for spending to plummet in the next few months. As this happens corporate earnings will go down putting further downward pressure on the stock market. Credit card defaults will go up causing further losses to the banking system.

Right now I am assuming Obama will be elected (not my personal preference, I don't really like either of our choices). It is inevitable that he will raise taxes. With all the current handing out of money that the government is doing the next president will have no choice but to increase taxes. This will hurt the economy further. At some point soon inflation from this wild printing of money will catch up with us and I think we could have hyper inflation.

I suppose the good news for this is that it will finally solve two problems. People's home loans will become more affordable to them and the National Debt should be much easier to pay off. The bad news is all of our ATMs will have to be retrofitted to handle million dollar bills as the new twenty.