You have reached the shortest chapter in this book.
As I’ve hinted already, abortion is a subject I refuse to discuss on the air, except in the simplest of terms.
Why? Because you have your opinion and I have mine, and though we may talk until we’re blue in the face, neither of us is going to change the other’s mind. There’s absolutely no point in arguing about it.
Having said that, I’ve promised my listeners that I would address the issue, at last, in these pages. So here goes:
I don’t like abortion.
In fact, I’m anti-abortion—especially when it’s used for purposes of birth control.
But that doesn’t mean you’ll see me toting around a pickled fetus in a jar or blocking the doorway and cursing at a seventeen-year-old girl as she tries to get inside to see a doctor on what is probably the worst day of her life.
You see, it is possible to dislike abortion and still be pro-choice.
I’m not a woman. I’ll never be pregnant. Thus it’s not a decision I’ll ever have to make. Nor should it be. And I wish to play no role in coercing a woman one way or another.
Lest you wrongly conclude that I’ve suddenly gone all soft-hearted—or, worse, bleeding-hearted—let me set the record straight. My concern isn’t really for the emotional discomfort a woman must go through in order to undo a bad sexual choice. In fact, that experience probably ought to be unpleasant—at least enough to make her think long and hard before the next time she starts kicking back tequila shooters at Applebee’s at two in the morning.
Okay, that’s a little harsh. But you get my point.
No, my real concern isn’t over preserving our precious “family values” or any of that other right-wing hoopla on the subject. In fact, I consider much of the debate about abortion—from both sides—to be a smokescreen, a distraction. The real threat, to you and me and everyone else in America, male or female, is the Imperial Federal Government.
I don’t know about you, but I simply refuse to believe that my government should be powerful enough to pull out a gun and put it to a woman’s head to force her to have a child she doesn’t want to have. Because, believe me, the government won’t stop there.
Oh…and one more thing.
The terminology is not “pro-abortion” and “pro-life.” It’s “pro-choice” and “anti-choice.” Only those two terms present the controversy in a way that’s fair to both sides. And you know what a stickler I am for being fair.
End of discussion.