"Pro-choice and pro-life: You both suck"

The point of my rant is not to debate whether abortion is right or wrong. While I guess I am pro-life, I nonetheless support the right of someone else to be pro-choice, and I realize that abortion is an individual moral decision that the government has no business regulating. I also realize that, as a man, my opinion makes no real difference on abortion since I'm not the one having the baby. The point of this rant to show that the popular arguments used by the pro-choice and pro-life crowds are used selectively, and are pretty much hypocritical.

Walking around campus last week, I noticed someone had written "my body, my choice" in chalk in various areas. I assume this is in protest to the pro-life display at Rudder Fountain this week. But is the "my body, my choice" argument really back up the pro-choice position? The argument states that a woman has a right to choose what she will or will not do to her own body. By this logic, a woman should have the right to choose to have an abortion, and should not be bound by laws.

By that same rationale, however, a woman (or man) should be free to shoot-up heroin, smoke a fat-ass chronic blunt, or take the occasional after-sex hit off the crack pipe. After all, it is her body, and therefore her "choice" to do drugs. However, laws exist that prevent the use of drugs. These drug laws are retarded and useless, but that's another rant. Anyway, if pro-choice advocates are going to use the argument "my body, my choice" and call for the end of abortion laws, then they must also advocate the legalization of drugs. Not to do so is hypocritical and weakens your position. After all, just as the government should not restrict a woman's right to choose to have an abortion, the government (by this logic) should also not restrict a woman's right to use narcotics.

On a similar note, it would seem hypocritical for someone to be pro-life, and yet advocate the killing of doctors who perform abortions, or advocate the use of the death penalty. After all, a human life is a human life (say the pro-lifers). So again, lots of pro-lifers want to have their cake and eat it to. They are against aborting fetuses, but advocate the death penalty. And this whole approach of showing disguisting, gross pictures of aborted fetuses only gets insults (and sometimes rocks) hurled their way. Showing me a picture of an alcoholic's liver won't make me stop drinking. Showing me a picture of an aborted fetus won't make someone pro-life. It'll just make them puke up their double cheeseburger, and they will become even more defensive of their pro-choice position.

Unfortunately, most pro-choice advocates aren't calling for the legalization of drugs to uphold their argument. And many pro-life individuals also support the death penalty. Until both pro-choice and pro-life individuals stop selectively using arguments in their cause (only to turn around and go against that same argument), they will continue to be looked upon as hypocrites. And I will continue to ignore both sides.

Jon Apgar (a.k.a. Bluto)


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