Contraception - 2-26-2012 - part two

(ed. caveat: there is no reason to attempt a true discussion of the matter at hand unless one avoids employing colorful euphemisms and politically correct terminology. This subject requires frank and direct language and thus it is used as required – if you are overly sensitive, please find something else to occupy your time other than reading this blog)

The hue and cry over the ongoing contraception debate within the national body politic is an example of reflexive political correctness hysteria run amok. The real issues have been ignored and obfuscated to the point of distraction by intellectual lightweights interested not in true public policy, but rather with an eye to securing a place at the table of power, never understanding that all power and fame is fleeting to those who would treat it in such a cavalier manner.

To wit:

Consider the fact that somehow rape has been introduced into the aforementioned national discussion revolving around the voluntary process of employing contraceptive methodologies. Rape is not about sex; rape is a physical assault, an act of violence. We as a nation should be outraged that our elected officials have opted to entangle and intertwine this crime with the debate on health care. A victim of rape has as much to do with the subject of contraception in the form of a ‘morning after pill’ as a naval base has being designed for the city of Denver; to tie the crime of rape to contraception is nothing more than adding another level of assault upon the victim. The issue of rape and incest should be dealt with within the realm of the criminal courts, with an eye to inflicting a more appropriate penalty to the perpetrator; the victim is issued a lifetime sentence dealing with  the trauma – the same should hold for the assailant, with the added guarantee of castration to guarantee that the crime can never be repeated by the now soprano  criminal. The diminishing recognition that rape and incest are violent, heinous, vicious attacks has allowed the weak of political mind to casually group such crimes with ‘women’s health’. The American electorate should demand of their local officials to legislate harsher penalties, preferably as delineated above, to help secure some manner of preemptive protection for the public, and some attempt to provide justice to the victims.

Once rape and incest are properly removed from the subject of contraception, the issue becomes one of responsibility and rights. It strikes an odd chord that the media and certain public officials seem so comfortable equating contraception as inclusive solely with women’s health rights. When last it was examined, conception cannot take place without two consenting members of each required gender. The fact therefore that the issue of contraception has become part of the discussion of women’s reproductive rights seems to imply that the responsibility for addressing the responsibilities for birth control lies solely with the woman; is it not a matter of mutual consent?

The reality is that ‘reproductive rights’ is the new politically correct euphemism for abortion.

There are issues of conscience and morality involved with the subject of abortion and thus by definition should be kept out of the governmental discourse of the subject. With that point being made, however, there are matters of public policy that do in fact need to be addressed as part of the overall reality of the contraception debate.

Consider this  all too familiar scenario:

Lady A is impregnated as matter of mutual consent, or as a result of combined poor planning, by Gentleman B. If the political point is to be understood by those who group such matters into ‘women’s health’, the woman has the sole responsibility to decide whether she opts to have the pregnancy brought to term. “Brought to term’ is one side of the debates description of the issue; the opposing side chooses to describe it as the birth of a baby.

These are the lines of demarcation in the debate; it’s becoming accepted as merely a matter of semantics.

If Lady A decides to terminate her pregnancy, Gentleman B is considered by some as to have no say in the woman’s decision relative to her ‘reproductive rights’. Any attempt by Gentleman B to assert any level of input into the decision is derided by many of a political slant as being an infringement on a woman’s’ ‘right to choose’ – it is her body and she should have sole say into any decision affecting that body.

If Lady A decides to bring the baby to term, society now requires that Gentleman B provide financial support for the child and the mother until the child reaches the age of eighteen. He has no say in this decision either, as again it is the woman’s ‘right’ to decide what she does; Gentleman B is merely an appendage to that thought process.

These two apparently accepted principles are in direct conflict with each other, yet neither the mass media not the political class that accepts this as axiom chooses to fully comprehend that fact.

How does one have no say in what their fiscal responsibilities will be, and should Gentleman B opt to vanish from his public policy stated responsibilities, it is the public at large who is then charged with supporting that child for the next two decades.

Understand and be clear of the point being made here: any and all questions of morality and conscience have been removed as to avoid the aura of hysteria currently surrounding these questions within the body politic. It is essential to have this national debate absent any position of moral responsibility; once that Rubicon is crossed, the United States of America will transform itself into nothing more than a theocracy of any given current majority.

So the debate further extends to the nebulous and ridiculous of the choice between right and responsibility. The arc of the debate as being currently framed by the political extremes, leads us inexorably towards a point that has no location on any map of reality. The ‘right’ of ‘reproductive health’ by definition gives consent to it apparently to being a right solely held by Lady A in our example. Gentleman B is nothing more than a vessel, both for procreation and financial sustenance; his voice is silenced by those who feel that the male of the species have no viable existence in the conception and raising of their young. There is no comparable narrative with which to point out the absurdity, arrogance and intellectual dishonesty of such perceptions put into governmental action.

There can be no right without any corresponding responsibility; democracy, as does nature, abhors a vacuum; the belief that there can be action without consequence is folly. The argument is being made that the choice of contraception is a reasoned approach to accepting responsibility of an action. The reality remains that said choice should remain solely to the individual; there should be no public, or governmental involvement in the choice, or financial subsidy attached.

The hypocrisy involved with the inherent conflict of these arguments in staggering in scope. There is widespread outcry that the government has no business being involved in the bedrooms of the electorate; the chorus of the political elite of the entire political spectrum is heard clear and strong on that point.

It appears, however, that such a salient argument only holds when the attempt is made by the opposing political force to imbue their version of morality and conscience choice into an issue that the body politic has no business injecting itself in; the adage that holds what’s good for the goose is good for the gander - but the rights of what’s good are by political fiat held solely by the goose.

This debate must be taken as a whole if America is to address issues of abortion, contraceptive rights, reproductive rights, and whatever terminology the intellectual lightweights involved in the issue decide is the term of the month to describe the legislation of human sexuality.

The summation of this argumentative framework is thus:

- Rape is a violent crime of assault and must be treated apart from any discussion of consensual sexual interaction.

- Morality and conscious, while major imperatives in a personal decision making process, must be removed from the public debate, for at its heart it requires one to understand the machinations of another’s mind, and that is never a quality starting point for a rational debate.

- It takes two to conceive, or to opt not to conceive – each party has rights and responsibilities within that decision; society at large must determine what the boundaries and limitations of those should be.

-  Poor planning should not result in the public picking up the tab for one’s passion – abstinence should not be considered an unacceptable option.

Unless a reasoned framework is employed to debate the issue, America is slated to follow in the footsteps of other societies and civilizations that opted for a policy that everything is acceptable. It is not, but the boundaries of responsibility must be decided by the electorate, not by those who will say only what they believe to be of greater self interest to secure positions of political power.

Our posterity, should it be allowed to arrive, deserves no less.