Savage Love

[jbailey]

Dan Savage writes in his column this week,

The American Taliban doesn't think married heterosexual couples should be able to use birth control. If you care about your own freedom - not just your right to have premarital sex, but your right to decide whether, when, and how many children you're going to have—you need to read "The War On Contraception."

I have trouble imagining what people are thinking. A world where couples don't have sex? Can you imagine how much fighting there would be?

Okay, okay, so that's not the point. But with articles like Chicago economist links abortion to falling crime rates, it's incredibly distressing to see another attempt at taking away freedoms. While things like birth control and abortion are not in immediate risk here in Canada, it's hard to predict how long it would take for our our current Conservative leadership to start entertaining those thoughts.

I'm all for a principled discussion on sex and sexuality. But why don't people ever consider the concept that providing more tools to people is better than providing fewer?

Comments

Let's Not Overreact

[(Anonymous)]

I read Savage's column, but not the original essay in the New York Times Magazine. But I did read about the essay here (http://www.theamericanscene.com/2006/05/contra-contraception-now-that-its.php).

For Savage to refer to the "The American Taliban" is an unjust smear. Just because people believe that an act is wrong, does not mean that they wish to make it illegal. The Taliban imposed religious law upon all citizens of Afghanistan, with stoning for adultery for instance; U.S. Christians want to be allowed to pray at schools, but they don't believe non-Christians should be forced to pray as well.

As for abortion, it really ought to be an issue that cuts across conservative/liberal or Christian/agnostic debates. The debate as such has nothing to do with one's position on the desirability of God, liberty, taxes, or the welfare state.

If one believes that human life begins at conception, then surely it follows that it is wrong to act to end that life, and since it is a serious wrong against another (non-consenting) human being, it ought to be illegal. Pills that prevent implantation of fertilised eggs are merely a technique of ending that (supposed) human life, with the same aim and effect as surgery in a clinic.

Of course, if one believes that human life only begins after passage through the birth canal, then any way of ending the pregnancy becomes morally licit, and laws to protect the unborn are merely unjust restrictions upon women's lives.

With regard to Canada specifically, at the 2005 national convention of the Conservative Party of Canada, delegates passed the resolution that "A Conservative government will not support any legislation to regulate abortion." (see the policy statement (http://www.conservative-own.ca/documents/policy031905.pdf)); individual Conservative MPs still have some scope to vote according to their consciences. The Campaign Life Coalition did not endorse Stephen Harper or the Conservative Party, though they did endorse some Conservative (and Liberal) candidates.

You can have a principled discussion if you like. Condoms aren't going to become suddenly illegal, not even in the States.

Marc