Atomic Nerds

It’s activists versus government, round who cares! In this case, the government is Virginia governor Tim Kaine and the activists are pro-choice.

Tim Kaine, the Virginia governor and President Barack Obama’s hand-picked choice as the head of the Democratic National Committee, infuriated abortion-rights groups Monday by signing legislation that gives abortion foes a long-sought victory.

A long-sought victory? Could it be a state ban on late-term abortions? Tough laws about minor children and reporting requirements, or even a ban on abortions for minors? A counseling requirement before an abortion is performed? Restrictions on the morning-after pill?

Kaine brushed off intense lobbying by abortion rights supporters in Richmond to sign a bill that allows Virginia motorists to advertise their anti-abortion views by sporting “Choose Life” specialty license plates.

…Oh.

Gosh, the abortion foes must sure have their sights set low, lately.

The revenue from the specialty plates would go to crisis-pregnancy centers, which many abortion-rights backers believe proslyetize against abortion and encourage women to keep unwanted children.

Encouraging pregnant women not to have an abortion. How DREADFUL. They must be stopped immediately.

Now, in all fairness, crisis pregnancy centers do have their sleazy side- mostly in the realm of advertising themselves in misleading ways. But they also provide counseling and help arrange adoptions- and if you’re of that majority of the pro-choice camp that regards all abortions as bad things, but bad things that should remain legal, more adoptions of unwanted children is a good thing. Besides which, it’s not as if the regular kind of clinics that DO provide abortion don’t have their own sleazy side- both pro-life and anti-child-predator groups have been making a hobby of recording Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation clinic employees deliberately skirting statutory rape reporting laws. This is not a huge surprise on either side; both kinds of “clinics” would be likely to be staffed heavily with people on an ideological crusade, which makes bending or breaking rules and laws and ethics in its name a higher likelihood.

Thankfully for the consciences of everyone involved, nobody is forcing pro-choice taxpayers to pay for a cause they don’t support*- only the pro-life people who paid extra for the special license plate would be funding them under this particular piece of legislation. Hooray for free speech!

In Washington, NARAL/Pro-Choice America channeled more than 17,000 emails and 200 calls to the DNC urging Kaine to veto the bill.

“It is unfortunate that, even after receiving thousands of messages from Virginians and pro-choice activists across the country, Gov. Kaine has opted to sign a bill that advances a divisive political ideology at the expense of women’s health,” NARAL/Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan said in a statement.

Or not!

As a side note, I’m more than a little tired of hearing abortion equated with “women’s health”. While we can point to cases of outrageous idiocies like the current Pope’s condemnation of the nine-year-old rape victim’s abortion, which she would have died without, so far as I’m aware there is no place in these United States where a woman cannot have an abortion if her health is put at serious risk by the pregnancy. Women are, essentially, built to carry infants to term- and while there are plenty of potential risks associated with that, including mental health ones, the pro-lifers aren’t wrong about the health risks- including mental- involved with abortion, either.

Kaine defended the move by pointing out that Virginia has a “long-standing program” allowing customized license plates and said that if Planned Parenthood applied for a plate he would grant it.

“I sign this legislation today in keeping with the Commonwealth’s longtime practice of approving specialty plates with all manner of political and social messages,” Kaine said in a statement.

Apparently, it is not enough that you have your freedom of speech- for women to truly be free, other people have to lose theirs. Or at least I can think of no other reason for the furor.

Because it’s not as though a woman, pregnant and confused, could look at the array of messages, options, and facilities… and choose. Like she was a rational adult or something. That would just be nuts.

Let’s let Kaine have the parting shot:

“Furthermore, if Planned Parenthood—an organization that is already a recipient of state budget funds—or another similar organization ever chooses to seek a specialty license plate in Virginia, I believe the Constitution would require the state to approve that plate to protect against any viewpoint discrimination.”

*Pro-life taxpayers are out of luck on that score.

Posted current events, Ranting |