Reproductive Rights

I was raised in a Southern Baptist household and spent the first 17 years of my life with parents who called black people niggers. We were right-wing Republicans through and through, who steered clear of debt like we steered clear of Commies like we steered clear of Satan. We were so conservative that when I left home to be sworn into the US Naval Academy, it was like stepping into a parallel universe of liberalism. For all its faults, the Academy taught me to think critically about god, the military, war and freedom. By the time I became an officer in the middle of the Vietnam debacle, I was thoroughly radicalized. I had turned completely Blue.

When South Dakota's paternalistic governor signed that state's new abortion law this year, I wrote him a letter assuring him that South Dakota would never see a penny of my family's tourism spending. Today, Michael Round sent me a reply.

As a back-sliding Baptist, I am fully authorized (by god and my mama) to comment on all things insane from the evangelical right. What you are about to read from the Raleigh News and Observer fits the bill.

A few years ago, Lynn Paddock sought Christian advice on how to discipline her growing brood of adopted children.

::snip::

Paddock ordered Michael and Debi Pearl's books and started spanking her adopted children as suggested. After Sean, the youngest of Paddock's six adopted children, died last month, his older sister and brother told investigators about Paddock's spankings. Sean's 9-year-old brother was beaten so badly he limped, a prosecutor said. Bruises marred Sean's backside, too, doctors found.

Here's a barely-related side note to my previous post. Also in the NC Conservative today is commentary about the role abortion issues played in the Alito confirmation hearings. In making his point, the author describes the risks of abortion as including "the possibility of killing the next Einstein, Beethoven or Lincoln in the womb."

I know we're born with certain genetic predispositions, but does anyone doubt that Beethoven's life did more than his parentage to make him worthy of our rememberance? Don't we think that, had the infant Abe Lincoln been adopted by a southern family by the name of Booth, someone else would have presided over the Civil War? There are a number of good arguments that the anti-choice people can bring to the table, but this is definitely not one of them.