Abortions

One of the big issues that drives voters in this country is abortion. Of course, it often doesn’t drive voters to vote coherently, as those who claim to be the most concerned about reducing the number of abortions tend to vote for candidates that aren’t particularly good at reducing that number.

Anyway, I don’t want to start by talking about abortions, but rather, about homeless people. The other day I was in downtown LA, and I happened by skid-row. I started thinking about the homeless, and I was thinking about what would happen if a homeless guy showed up at the front door of one of the rest of us. Let’s assume the homeless was guy was “deserving poor” as opposed to some wino or addict, and though he was down and out, he managed to keep himself clean and relatively presentable, and he’s quite personable with a cheerful attitude. Of course, that whole last sentence is kind of irrelevant… presumably, we would just want the guy off the front porch and our property in general.

Sadly, we can’t just shoot the guy… and its not just because of the mess. You may find it hard to believe, but even though he’s poor and on our property the law won’t allow us to just shoot the bastard. (I checked.) Still, the law does say we have the right to have him off our property, and if he can’t or won’t go, the cops will take him off.

Now let’s add to the story. Let’s say he was hungry… perhaps he hasn’t eaten in a few days. And he doesn’t have money to buy food. How does this change the story? Well, it doesn’t. The guy has the right to stagger off our property and starve on the street or to be dragged off by the cops, in which he case he can starve wherever they happen to take him – the second option is better since we won’t have to call anyone to have the carcass hauled away if he doesn’t drop dead in front of the house.

Does the story change if somehow we’re at fault for his predicament? Perhaps if we had him fired from his job, or if we polluted the water he breathed at one point, causing him to have headaches that prevented him from working and led to the downward spiral? Not just no, hell no, the story does not change. What if its not a homeless man – what if it’s a homeless child? What a stupid idea! Of course that makes no difference either. We still have the right to have the kid removed from our property. Yes, the cops might take the kid to Child Services or whatever, but the key is that its not our damn problem, and if the kid wants to starve so be it, and we have the right to get him to do it somewhere else. What if its your child? I don’t know anything about adoption law, but I would imagine people are free to disown and otherwise give up their children should they choose.

You, the reader, of course know where I’m going with this. The next step is to ask – so what is the difference between not having any obligation to keep a child alive in your home for longer than it takes the cops to show up and drag the kid away and not having any obligation to keep a child in your womb for nine months? Also, why does it seem that the folks that are most concerned about a person’s right to defend their property from others are the most concerned that a woman might view her womb the same way?