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October 2, 2012 - There's now less than a week left in the indiegogo fundraiser and it doesn't look like it will make it. Which is fine because it would have been a lot of extra work and I was far more interested in it as a something to talk about than act on. But if you'd still like to contribute, you're more than free to do so and I encourage you to do such.
I haven't done a lot with protestors so far, and I liked including them in the background to acknowledge their existence. Recently a protesting group caused a clinic in New York to stop offering abortions. I have a lot of difficulty understanding people so outwardly expressing disapproval of abortion as when looking at the facts it's hard to dismiss the practice. I'm always open to a factual discussion of the reasons to oppose someone else's abortion, but far too frequently it becomes a moral argument instead of a factual one.
I'm not going to debate whether or not anyone feels abortion is morally wrong. It's not really the point. It's a result of sexual behavior that had complications or occurred in an irresponsible manner. If you want to prevent such sexual behavior, do more to educate and prevent rather than attacking the consequence instead of the cause.
But really I find the best ways I can talk about abortion is the similarities it shares with the theories regarding laws involving drugs and firearms. Basically the arguments for less restrictions regarding drugs and firearms boil down to the fact that people who reach the dire circumstances where they intend to use drugs and firearms irresponsibly will get their drugs and firearms anyway at much greater risk so there's no reason to restrict people trying to get these things especially when such reduction could reduce crime. Think of it, if you want, no let's say need, a gun for home protection or whatever cuz you're living in a dangerous neighborhood. Are you better off getting the gun from a law-abiding citizen who sells them or a criminal? Obviously you're better off getting said gun from the law-abiding citizen. For all you know the criminal will up and kill you. The same applies to drugs, which carry the added risk of quality control when obtained through an illegal source (which I think may partially be responsible for the rise of pharmaceutical abuse as the quality is more consistent, but I don't want to diverge on too large a tangent). So when a woman wants an abortion, the legality of the procedure isn't what stops her. The legality only puts her safety at risk (and if you want the facts I'm stressing, statistics regarding the abortion rates of countries where abortion is illegal vs. countries where abortion is legal, support the theory that the legality of abortion does nothing to impact the abortion rate).
Now, unfortunately this makes me sound like I'm comparing women seeking abortions to drug addicts and violent criminals when really there's a big difference between pregnant women and these other groups. And that difference is intent. A violent criminal is looking to cause a crime with the guns. A drug addict is looking to get high with the drugs. A women who has an abortion probably wasn't looking to get pregnant (there are some instances when she was, but usually those instances where she was looking to get pregnant involve discovering a fetus that poses massive health risks). Barring some form of assault, which makes things even worse, most likely she was looking to have sex without getting pregnant. And she has every right to do so. You can't hold a woman (or man for that matter) to one religions standards on appropriate sexual behavior/chastity, and that same religious freedom extends to whatever should happen should she become pregnant.
The religious arguments against abortion to me, always fly in the face of the principle of freedom of religion. Just because you believe something, gives you no right to force it on others. But if you do believe in the rights of unborn children due to some sort of religious belief (fun fact: there's nothing in the Bible condemning abortion, with most of the Biblical assertions related to passages indicating the omnipotence of God in predicting the birth of many of his prophets (not to mention his son) rather than an obligation of women to carry unwanted children to term) then create technology that allows children to be born without an attachment to a woman, support children put up for adoption or with special needs, or accept the fact that access to birth control lowers the abortion rate (tons of research has proven this). There are so many better and more productive things to do with one's time and energy than vilify women in difficult situations. Why waste everyone's time shutting down facilities on a campaign that only criminalizes (rather than reduces, a very important distinction) abortion procedures?
So now that all that's said. I could probably say something about the importance of talking about sex that relates more directly to this comic. But I guess I'll save that for the next comic with Jennifer and her mother.
-D
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