POLITICS 4

It will always amaze me how many of our elected officials choose to ignore the laws of our land because of their FEEEEEEEEELINGS. The House and Senate are currently once again mired in the abortion debate, this time over whether abortions should be covered in the proposed government health care plan.

This kind of thing makes my head expand and pop, sending my very brain matter, bone fragments, blood products, and possibly a tiny entombed fossilized twin into the air to land on my carpet and walls, necessitating a call to a disaster clean-up crew. This happens a few times a week. Life is frustrating.

Anyway, let's clear this right up, starting with this quote from the article from Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA):

"We want to make sure we don't deny women the opportunity to avail themselves of a totally legal procedure," Boxer told CNN in a phone interview. "We believe this is unfair to women, it singles them out as a group. There is no other procedure in this bill that is denied."

I don't at all care about whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Librarian, Independent, or Shmuck. Law is law, and you can't ignore the law because of your personal views and/or that you fear your god will whup up on your ass. To not cover this LEGAL MEDICAL PROCEDURE is blatant discrimination and craps on the entire meaning of our system of justice. There is absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to legally and logically defend the exclusion of abortion coverage in a health plan provided by a government that is supposedly separate from the wacky weight of religious views.

Imagine if a fair majority of our lawmakers were staunch Jehovah's Witnesses and would only pass a health care bill if it specifically stated that the government would not cover blood transfusions, for any reason. Well, hold on there a minute, right? Receiving blood is legal, sometimes life-saving, so this seems to be a no-brainer. You can't deny any of your population legal medical care, can you? That would seem to be WRONG. And let us state emphatically that denying insurance coverage for anything medical often results people not being able to afford care on their own, not being able to best remain healthy, going into serious debt, or worst of all, seeking unqualified and dangerous medical care. In this country, we don't have to all subscribe to the same religion or non-religion or the same concepts of morality. We do all have to follow the same set of laws, though, don't we? Or is Congress exempt? Hmmmmm.

My suggestion for those who wish to run for Congress: if you feel that your personal beliefs will prevent you from following the laws of this country, or that your agenda is more important than the laws of this country, or that you feel only certain laws of this country are to be obeyed, DON'T RUN FOR OFFICE AT ALL. How you and your constituents FEEL about certain laws doesn't MATTER. What matters is that you have the maturity and character to at all times respect the laws set in place.

Nobody is going around saying HURRAY FOR ABORTION! WOOOO! It's unfortunate, and I would also wish everyone could agree that education and prevention of unwanted pregnancies is a far-better alternative so abortions would be far less common. But do you know WHAT? If someone IS going around saying WOOOO ABORTIONS! and I feel a little offended about it, that doesn't matter either. My job isn't to judge, and it's not Congress', either. There is NOTHING to be gained by forcing a woman to remain pregnant against her wishes; the world hardly needs another unwanted child. It's cruel and ignorant for anyone to blithely toss off, "Well, she didn't have to have sex/should've known better/should give the kid up for adoption." NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS, GOVERNMENT. And none of mine.

When a woman does not have full control of what happens to her body, she is less of a human being.

An American government health care bill is a sham and a disgrace if passed and signed into law while excluding coverage for a legal medical procedure based on nothing more than personal views and political agendas. Period. Yes, that's a rather black humored pun I just did right there.