Indulge me.

[kellinator]

For those of you who are planning to vote for Bush in November, would you please tell me why? Preferably a reason a little more nuanced than "Kerry's an asshole"?

Note: You're not going to change my mind on this. If the past four years haven't changed my mind, a fifty-word comment sure as hell isn't going to do it.

I'm just trying to understand. Right now nothing scares me more than the thought of four more years of Bush, but I know there are people I like and respect who disagree for whatever reason, and I want to know why, so I can at least try to understand.

No flaming. If I'm too slammed to post my DragonCon pictures (coming soon!), I'm sure as hell too busy to play referee. Play nice, folks.

Comments

[gaiagurl.livejournal.com]

i'm sorry, but that's just dumb. do these people even think? you can't end abortion by making it illegal. what you can do is make it more dangerous and kill lots and lots of women who will get abortions anyway, but who won't get them in safe, sterile environments at the hands of real mds rather than dirty-handed quacks.

the "pre-born children" are still gonna die. there's no way around it.

[winterbadger]

Well, fewer people will get abortions if they're illegal. I honestly believe that. If someone is faced with the choice between something they don't think they can handle and a painful, unpleasant, stigmatizing process, they will often choose the latter. If alternative B also includes a serious chance they may die, that will tip the scales for some of them.

But you don't convince people to stop doing things by banning them. You convince them by *showing* them its wrong. Some people are deterred from doing murder because they fear the consequences, sure, but IMO most people reject murder as an option because *they* *believe* it's wrong. We haven't made huge inroads in American's smoking habits by banning tobacco (the only people who aren't supposed to get it--kids and some convicts--still get it anyhow); we've done it by stigmatizing smoking and convincing people it will *harm* them to do it.

I hate the idea of people having abortions: what a horrible position to put someone in, deciding to end what at some point could be a human life! But it has to be an option, because for some people it really is the *only* choice. You'll do a lot more good teaching kids how to avoid having babies in the first place. Even the plans from Africa the president cites as showing abstinence works said "abstain, abstain, abstain: and if you can't abstain..."