Wow what a load of crap. The basic sentiment is sound but what he wrapped around it really stunk.

Claiming he knows what Mohammed Atta, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would think.

He starts off with two great paragraphs and then just heads for the horizon. I spent almost the entire article saying wait a second.

I tend to agree. While I laud his emphasis on the absolute necessity of freedom for women, I take issue with his lumping of people who oppose abortion with people who want to de-personify women (Sorry, I know that's not a word... it's still early). To group them together is to willfully ignore that one group does what it does because of a belief in the importance of life, and the other completely disregards the importance of life.

I completely agree that a woman has the right to do what she wants with her own body... it's the new person's body inside hers that I am concerned with.

Ditto John. As a woman, and a mother, it drives me crazy to read crap like that. Because I believe the life growing inside a woman deserves a chance, I am relegating women to being 'chatel of the state' (or whatever his phrase was)?

"Without questioning the integrity of those who believe that life begins at conception, the struggle to overturn Roe v. Wade can also be viewed as an attempt to turn back the clock on women's freedom. Opposing such a reversal isn't a matter of thinking abortion admirable, but of accepting the magnificent revolutionary principle that no man has a right to tell any woman what she can or cannot do with her body."

What kind of NARAL hack ghost-wrote this?
Tell me again why nobody takes USAToday seriously?

Thank you folks, that was my reaction too- how can he so blithely claim that someone who cares about the humanity of an unborn baby is the equivalent a crone supporting genital mutilation??? I saw my 18 week old son ("fetus") on that ultrasound, and see human life staring me in the face. I cannot understand how someone supposedly "civilized" would accuse me of being hateful for refusing to deny this reality.

This gratuitous swipe at pro-lifers does nothing to advance the cause of women. Unlike Ralph Peters, I perceive that women are capable of being free AND responsible.

Yes, women should be responsible, and there's no better way to ensure that responsibility than at the muzzle of a gun!

Gee... should I go read the article or not? ;-)

And I've got no clue what mediageek is talking about.

I tell ya though... it annoys me to no end when pro-life is couched as a "man" thing... trying to force women back into a 1950's box. It annoys me just as much as when my gender is co-opted by any group... Million Mom March for gun control, etc.

And I know that libertarians tend toward pro-choice but the fact is that quite a few of us are strongly pro-life on the grounds that the rights to our own bodies applies to all human beings, not just the more powerful ones. Insisting that human rights depend on ones place of residence is like an abusive husband claiming that he can do what he likes in his own home.

Even so, I can admit that the libertarian pro-choice argument is not irrational. There really is a conflict between the rights of the mother and the rights of the child. Defining the baby into non-human status to solve it, however, is cowardly.

Okay, I read it, and I'm going to cry foul... not about abortion either...

"The math is basic. No civilization that excludes half its population from full participation in society and the economy can compete with the United States and its key allies."

No civilization that does not count procreation as "full participation" is looking at a very short period of prosperity. (see Europe) Furthermore, no poor nation keeps it's women out of the work force! Poor women have always worked outside the home because they have to, while wealthy women have the luxury of staying home and the middle class stupidly does it's best to try to act rich.

The middle east doesn't count and doesn't prove anything because the economy doesn't even count on the *men* working. Labor is imported.

"We do not think of our troops abroad as fighting for women's rights."

Sez who.

IIRC, currently the U.S. population runs at approximately 52% female to 48% male give or take a splinter.

Would that not perforce extend to the birth rate, and therefore the certainty that probably (tho only slightly) over one-half of the babies aborted are female?

"You've come a long way, baby!"

A familiar article if one has read Col. Peter's Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States from Parameters, Spring 1998.

And no, Col. Peters is not "full of crap". He is actually a brilliant thinker and writer. I would suggest reading the article I cited above and then address what he says on the merits rather than just dismissing it out of hand.

"Bah." isn't an argument that anyone takes seriously.

(But I mean that in a nice way.)

And I've got no clue what mediageek is talking about.

Julie, my point is that outlawing abortion doesn't mean women now have to take responsibility for their choices. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the state has already made the choice for them, and going against that state-mandated "choice" is to tacitly invite the state to use force to intervene.

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master."
-George Washington

I have two things to say about this article.

1) Every person has a right to say what happend to their body. However, abortion involves more than the mother body, it involves the baby's. You can't use your rights to destroy someone else's. Abortion is not progress for women. It has occured since ancient times when women were property.

2)Reducing the War on Terror to an issue of women's rights alone is missing the forest for the tree. The treatment of women in the Middle East was bad long before terrorism became an issue.

Darnit... I was just about done and my computer poo'd. I swear my post was brilliant, too. ;-)

Long story short... personal responsibility only applies when there is some consequence to being irresponsible. Yes, laws circumvent the need and teach us that we don't have to be responsible for ourselves, but without natural or social consequences to actions (not paying your bills, cheating on your spouse) there is *also* no need to be responsible for our own actions. If irresponsible sex followed by an abortion because you don't want to be fat in the summer is 100% as acceptable as taking your pills and insisting on condoms and *not* getting pregnant, then what is there to be responsible about?

Secondly, concerning the emancipation of women as an indicator of societal and economic health. Oh, absolutely. It just isn't the *cause* of it. Clearly education and access to health care for women correspond with better conditions. But what is happening with the men at the same time? Are girls going to school *instead* of boys? No. Girls go to school when families can send all of their children to school. If a poor family can only send one or two children to school... they send the boys. Girls going to school means that everyone is getting a better education. Same with health care. Maybe some places may need a little kick in the butt... hey look, you can educate your girls now... as soon as that starts happening everything starts to get better quickly.

So what about Afghanistan? Was that a cess-pool *because* women were being kept out of the economy and girls were forbidden an education? Or was it a cess-pool because the guys running it were also screwing up *everything*?

I just wonder how he can go on and on about we "achieve the dynamism and force of [a country] in which women are senators, judges, CEOs, doctors and military pilots," and then say "Opposing such a reversal isn't a matter of thinking abortion admirable, but of accepting the magnificent revolutionary principle that no man has a right to tell any woman what she can or cannot do with her body."

Suddenly when it's abortion, it's only the men telling a woman what to do with her body? There are only men making laws and regulations about abortion? What happened to all the women senators and judges and doctors and stuff? Somehow they're never involved in the laws and regulations and whatnot regarding abortion?