Thanks ITC for your articulation of your positions. And for letting me know that someone somewhere is advocating for reducing the voting age to 16 (seems nuts to me). I was not aware of that, and agree, it seems pretty duplicitous to advocate for that in tandem with more nanny state policies.
I agree with a lot of what you put forth above. On the abortion issue, I come from the pro-choice side of things, but meet you in the middle on the notion that late term abortions should be avoided in all but the most extreme and exceptional cases. I do hear folks on the right who are just engaging fear mongering on this issue, claiming all or most or even many progressives want to murder full term babies while they are half out of the mother's womb, some, like Alex Jones, even claiming we want to harvest their organs and cannibalize them. I don't think that is fair or productive rhetoric, but at the same time, I cringe at the positions a very small minority of far left folks take on this issue (that is, that we should allow abortions as late as full term for whatever reasons a doctor or mother may have, without any analysis or oversight of the mental state of the mother or reasons for the decision). I think a fairer debate on this would recognize that almost all women who carry a fetus that far want to have that child and there is most usually a very compelling reason they might pursue termination, such as a late discovery of severe congenital defects that severely impact that length or quality of life. Such decisions are very, very seldom made flippantly, and are usually agonizing to make, and it generally makes a lot of sense for those most invested in that life to make those decisions rather than the government or outsiders not privy to all of the facts.
I agree with a lot of what you put forth above. On the abortion issue, I come from the pro-choice side of things, but meet you in the middle on the notion that late term abortions should be avoided in all but the most extreme and exceptional cases. I do hear folks on the right who are just engaging fear mongering on this issue, claiming all or most or even many progressives want to murder full term babies while they are half out of the mother's womb, some, like Alex Jones, even claiming we want to harvest their organs and cannibalize them. I don't think that is fair or productive rhetoric, but at the same time, I cringe at the positions a very small minority of far left folks take on this issue (that is, that we should allow abortions as late as full term for whatever reasons a doctor or mother may have, without any analysis or oversight of the mental state of the mother or reasons for the decision). I think a fairer debate on this would recognize that almost all women who carry a fetus that far want to have that child and there is most usually a very compelling reason they might pursue termination, such as a late discovery of severe congenital defects that severely impact that length or quality of life. Such decisions are very, very seldom made flippantly, and are usually agonizing to make, and it generally makes a lot of sense for those most invested in that life to make those decisions rather than the government or outsiders not privy to all of the facts.
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