Liberal — Global Gag Rule violated conservative principles
Christopher Herrin
On Jan. 23, President Barack Obama repealed controversial federal guidelines that forbade organizations receiving U.S. financial assistance from providing abortions. The Mexico City Policy, also known as the “global gag rule,” barred organizations from providing counseling or advice about abortion.
In a written statement, the president indicated a desire to pursue more effective ways of reducing unintended pregnancies in developing countries.
“For the past eight years, they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing countries,” Obama said of the restrictions. “For these reasons, it is right for us to rescind this policy and restore critical efforts to protect and empower women and promote global economic development.”
The “liberal” pro-choice view is actually the conservative one. The pro-choice view takes the decision-making power out of the hands of bureaucrats and puts it back into the hands of women.
It is a fundamental contradiction in Ronald Reagan’s philosophy that “big government” should get out of peoples’ way, while then saying that the same government should exert authority over peoples’ reproductive organs. Though Reagan was anti-abortion, the pro-choice view is in harmony with Reagan’s notion that “big-government” is the problem, not the solution.
The global gag rule contradicted democratic principles, in which people are free to shape their own destinies. In a democratic society, people are free to make decisions.
Legalization of abortion can be seen as democratizing healthcare, making options for both rich and poor more equitable. It also eliminates the opportunity for a clandestine black-market to flourish in a vacuum.
Lifting restrictions on family planning enables family-planning providers to provide thorough counseling on issues regarding sexuality and reproduction, including birth control. This information will reduce the numbers of women in unplanned pregnancies perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
Tod Preston, vice-president of the advocacy group Population Action International, told The New York Times, “President Obama’s actions will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, abortions and women dying from high-risk pregnancies because they don’t have access to family planning.”
Part of the Reagan Revolution was abolishing the burdensome regulations that kept businesses and other organizations from operating as efficiently as they otherwise could. Lifting the gag rule allows global health organizations to more effectively help people in developing countries control the size of their families.
This will in turn make it possible to improve economic development, resulting in higher quality of life and political stability.
Christopher Herrin is a graduate Religious Studies major and a columnist for the Daily Forty-Niner.
Conservative — Liberal abortion policy needed global gag
Brian Cuaron
Just a few days into his presidency and Barack Obama brought hope to millions of women and their men worldwide; people who wish to decline the responsibility of parenthood by killing off their unborn children.
Let us rejoice at Obama’s repealing of the “global gag rule” The world’s people can have sex at their pleasure and not have to worry about the after effects. The best part about it is that they can do so on the American taxpayer’s tab.
Yes, the college student who’s busting his butt through school, the blue-collared worker who’s barely able to support a family, the single mother who gave birth to a child even after her man left her — all of them can smile at the fact that they’re donating money for the world to have conscience-free sex.
In today’s economic recession, the United States government needs to invest money into the welfare of its people. This spending leaves some with the satisfaction that their hard-earned money is for some guy named Omari to get it on without having to worry about his condom breaking. That’s what I call a worthy investment.
Now, I know what some of you misguided conservatives are thinking. You’re telling yourself it’s not right for your president to give away millions of your dollars so that non-government agencies can perform and inform clients about abortions.
“I just don’t think it’s right to kill a living human being just because it hasn’t come out of the womb yet,” the quirky conservative says. “I mean, weren’t we already donating money toward abortion in the cases of rape, incest or life-threatening conditions?”
We were my friend, but that wasn’t good enough. You see, those foreign people need to have access to an abortion if they think the potential child would make life too hard for them — and you need to help pay for that.
“But aren’t those living babies inside of the mother’s womb?” asks the persistent conservative. “They can feel pain, suck their thumbs and even move around. How can that not be called a child?”
Okay, I’ll give you that the unborn may resemble a human being and may even be the offspring of such. But here in liberal America we believe in the survival-from-point-A-to-point-B policy: if you’re not still alive when you get from the womb to the outside world, then you’re technically not a human, even if you look like one.
“That’s like saying a car isn’t a car just because it’s in the shop having tires changed,” the conservative says.
Conservative, you’re annoying me now. Shut up so I can enjoy the tolerant society of “Obama Land.”
Brian Cuaron is an English major and the video editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.