I’ve spent the last several months consuming news.  I prefer sites that offer links to primary sources, but I’m usually not too picky about who is writing the news.  I’ve even read some Fox News articles.  I cast a wide net and sift through all of the grit and opinionated sludge.  I look at what’s left and try to stay informed.  And what’s left has for the most part made me depressed and worried for the future of our country.

Not wanting to simply sit on the sidelines and let things go, I’ve considered running for some local office and stepping foot into public service.  It’s not a job that I particularly want, but maybe that’s a good thing, right?

There are a few reasons I wouldn’t do well in politics.  For one, I have integrity, so I’m never going to get elected to any serious position.  For another, I have some fairly controversial ideas about how to handle certain hot button topics.

Tonight, as a way of warming up my writing muscles, I’m going to talk about my thoughts on abortion.

I have a starting position and a secondary position, which I consider a sort of compromise.  I think the latter is more interesting and original, but let’s start with the first, because it’s the most palatable for most people.  If you do not agree with my primary position, please don’t click off.  Stick around and see if the compromise is more to your liking.  And if it isn’t, please leave me a comment as to why it is unfair or unworkable.

My starting position is that abortions should be legal and safe.  Much along the way conservatives think of gun control, outlawing abortions won’t make abortions go away.  We already experienced a time where young, scared women were dying in back alleys trying to rid themselves of an unwanted pregnancy.  We should not go back to that time.

There’s nothing particularly interesting about my starting position.  It’s a fairly standard liberal idea.  I don’t think of myself as particularly liberal, but on this subject, I think the left have it mostly right.

I don’t want to get too much into the arguments, because statistically, abortions are becoming less of a problem.  Unwanted teen pregnancies have been decreasing.  Americans are having less sex, in general.  I’ll say it again, Americans are having less sex.  Here’s another article specifically talking about teens and young people, and how pregnancies are down, and contraceptive use is up.

If you want to try and convince me that abortion is murder, you don’t have to.  I agree.  I just know that we have already experienced a time in our history where abortions were illegal, and they were still happening.  And in those cases, chances were good that there would be two victims: the unborn child and the mother.  Looking strictly at the numbers, there will be fewer deaths if abortions are safe and legal.

But let’s say that you or someone you know cannot be swayed to keep abortions safe and legal.  You or someone you know cannot be convinced to allow for the slaughter of unborn children.  I sympathize completely, and have an alternative solution.

My secondary position is this: make abortions illegal and abolish them, but force the fathers to get vasectomies when the pregnancies are unwanted.

Too often, the focus is on the mother when talking about abortions.  Well, let’s explore true justice.  If the woman is going to be forced to have her body irrevocably changed, make the man face some consequences, too.

This approach will have several positive side effects.  For starters, men will have that much more incentive to use protection and be considerate of their partners.  If the incentive is not enough and they produce unwanted children regardless, the child will become more precious to the father because it’s the only one they’re going to have.  Men that would be particularly prone to promiscuity and getting women pregnant won’t be able to do as much damage after they get snipped.

It takes two to tango, right?  Let’s take some of the focus off the women and put it on the men.  Both the mother and the father are equally responsible in the cases where the sex is consensual.  So let’s practice actual justice. (That link is slightly NSFW, by the way)

 

Anyway, that’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t be a very good politician.  There are other topics and other reasons.  Maybe I’ll write about those later.

For now, I need to get back to writing fiction.