Why Not Ban Flotation Devices?

So, when I was reading through Facebook the other day, I saw a picture posted by RH Reality Check. It made a very poignant analogy that helps to put into perspective a lot of the current debate in the political world surrounding contraception and abortion. I felt the need to share what it said (I must admit, I wish that I would have come up with this on my own!) -- here it is:

"We should ban life jackets and other flotation devices. They only encourage risky behavior. The only 100% effective way to prevent drowning is total abstinence from going in the water.

And if you do, by chance, find yourself struggling with drowning, then no life-saving or otherwise procedure or act should be allowed to be administered. You got yourself into this mess, you have to live with the consequences.

You should see drowning as a gift.

You, there with the sunglasses! You're just asking for it.

Also, if you were forcibly pushed into the water, don't worry. If it was a legitimate pushing, your body will find a way to shut out all the water and survive the drowning."

With news that The Republican Party has adopted, in its official platform, an all out ban on abortions -- even in the cases of rape, incest, or threat to a mother's health, it once again shows how out of touch many of these politicians are with real life. As I have written many times before, nobody is PRO-abortion. I am just wondering if these politicians have actually thought out the repercussions of what would happen if they get their way.

How would they feel if they had to grow up without a mother because she died as a result of her pregnancy? Not to mention, dealing with life-long survivor's guilt? Many women selflessly put aside their dreams of motherhood by terminating a pregnancy once it has become known that the baby would SUFFER his/her whole life with no dignity or quality of life due to chromosomal diseases or significant congenital defects. Babies born with such conditions, if they even survive, often need life-long, around-the-clock care. Are these politicians ready to take care of these children or budget governmental spending to facilities dedicated to safely and respectably caring for these individuals? Something tells me the answer would be NO.

So, Mitt Romney has repeatedly stated that he would create a personhood or "sanctity of life" law. How hypocritical is this? If you truly believe that each individual's life is viewed as sacred, WHY would you force a woman, who has been sexually violated, to nourish, grow and give birth to a baby that resulted from her rape? What type of sanctity of life does this woman have -- to be re-traumatized with a constant reminder of her violation? To have to live with the knowledge that her attacker's DNA has eternally merged wither own and is growing in her body? Then, she must agonize over the choice of mothering this child or placing it up for adoption? Where is the sanctity here? And, unfortunately, I can spend pages writing about other examples like this one.

I also wonder how these politicians can arbitrarily define that personhood begins at conception. Last I checked, most credible dictionaries define personhood as "the quality or condition of being an individual person." I couldn't find one dictionary that included any reference that personhood is established at conception. If you put any critical thought into this definition, "individual person" even suggests separate, single, distinguished or distinct from something else (don't know how many people would agree that a fetus could exist separate from its mother's womb). So this confuses me... you have reliable dictionaries/scholars that define personhood one way, and then you have the respected medical community that officially defines pregnancy as beginning at implantation. Where is it written that, not only can politicians chose to ignore established literature and make their own definitions for words, they can then create and adopt laws that are based on their own made-up meanings? Gee -- wouldn't it be fun if we can all make-up our own random definitions of words?

And, just for the record, if Mr. Romney and his cronies have it their way, these so-called personhood/sanctity of human life laws will not only forbid all types of abortions -- they would also prohibit women from using emergency contraception, many types of hormonal contraception (including the pill), in-vitro fertilization, and medical treatment for pregnant women (that could harm the fetus) even if the mother's life is dependant upon such treatment. Now, where's the sanctity in that?

_{Photo Courtesy of Microsoft Office}