I could only suggest she find out which neighboring state would allow her to have an abortion and avail herself of that state's service.

Then she should lobby her state legislature for new abortion laws...the retroactive kind that can be applied to idiotic state legislators.

Yep, she will just have to go to another state to have it done.

Many of those who supported Republicans did so because they wanted smaller government and less state spending. That these Republicans then started using their newfound power to beat the drums of their favorite social issues must be a source of real irritation for some people, but it shouldn't have been a surprise.

I saw it happen here in Iowa. And we are getting the budget-cutting we wanted, but then we also have to put up with the gay marriage issue being beaten to death. Iowa is one of the few states that allows gay marriage, and the Republicans are going after it as hard as they can. Well, this would be why I voted for Libertarians and not Republicans.

Even Ron Paul, who probably understands the real dangers facing our country better than anyone, finds himself struggling when he comes to Iowa to give speeches. The audience just gets confused when he talks about Federal Reserve policies and its Quantitative Easing program. They want him to talk about abortion or gays. So the best he can do is stammer out something about the family losing its strength because people expect the government to take care of them. This is true, but people find that harder to get behind - maybe because it is true of some of them, Republican or not.

I don't see how abortion or gay marriage has a freaking thing to do with baby-daddies abandoning their children, or the dumb girls who get knocked up by these guys. I don't see what that has to do with the sub-standard upbringing their offspring has, or their lackluster performance in school. And neither abortion nor gay marriage has any relation to stupid people who live beyond their means and cannot manage their lives as competent adults, even when they are far beyond the age of legitimately blaming their screw-ups on their parents.

To add to Pirate Jo's comments, the hypocrisy of conservatives is that getting government out of our lives and respecting self-determination means that people will be allowed to do ugly, offensive things. But it also means, they'll be allowed to do beautiful, wonderful things.

Let me rephrase my comment to be more clear:

Getting government out of our lives means that people will be allowed to do ugly, offensive things.

The hypocrisy of conservatives is that they claim to want to get government out of lives, but then pass legislation inserting government deeper into our lives, often in very personal ways.

If she wants to cross state lines, go her. That's the point of states. The people living in them decide the laws they want, and you are free to move about the country to find a place that offers what you desire.

This was discussed at some length in the AAS LTE forum last week. The "facts" kept changing as needed for the anti-restriction crowd, so I don't know that I buy anything about this.

@Joe, Pirate Jo:

You are conflating conservatism with the Republican party. Sure, Republicans support SOME of the conservative agenda, but they support more of the evangelical agenda which is inherently progressive.

This leads to a Republican party that is schizophrenic. The problem is that neither the conservatives nor the evangelicals have a large enough majority to challenge the Democratic Socialists.

Even though the Evangelicals are more in line with the DSs, they can't stand each other because the DSs are pro-abortion. So we get stuck with them because they know they are too weak to form their own party, and they know we are too weak to beat the DSs in their metropolitan strongholds.

So if you want even a little chance of shrinking the cost and footprint of government you either have to hold your nose and tolerate the evangelicals in the Republican party, or lose.

Believe me, I am not happy about this either, but if it's the only way to get the idiot fellow travelers of Marx out of power, I'll take the God Squad. We can deal with them later.

Brian, take heart - the evangelicals are old.

take heart - the evangelicals are old.

Posted by: Pirate Jo

And god is it going to be delicious when the "life is so sacred noone can escape the hellish pain one second early" crowd are the ones hooked up to life support machines and not allowed to die or recive any morphine

There is this ancient political cartoon I remember. It was a four panel cartoon.

The caption above it was something like "Those who have complete control of a woman's body."

The first panel was a female ice skater, the second was a ballerina, the third was a gymnast, the fourth was the front of the Supreme Court.

I was in my teens, but it made me a pro-choice. Now some twenty years down the road. I've had both left and right leanings over the years. It took forever to figure out that I could split on this.

The issue is how to get the Tea Party, Libertarians and the middle independents to say screw the social issues, get the federal leviathan under control and out of business, cut the regs, and especially cut the budget to the freakin' bone.

Just how do you expect a political leader to do their job when the voters are ignorant and greedy?

"And god is it going to be delicious..."

Don't think so. This sort of thing is a distraction.

The lesson here is that the bigger the agency involved in dealing with you, the less they care about you as an individual.

Remember that!

Whether you are being observed by the law or treated for a disease, the bigger the agency, the less likely you are to be treated correctly.

Jim P: The issue is how to get the Tea Party, Libertarians and the middle independents to say screw the social issues, get the federal leviathan under control and out of business, cut the regs, and especially cut the budget to the freakin' bone.

Finally...someone else who's willing to say that the Tea Party isn't JUST about fiscal responsibility. To hear some on this board tell it, the Tea Party's only issue is balancing the budget and stop spending money we don't have. It is not their only issue. Never has been. And, sadly, never will be.

Democrats are not pro-abortion. Nobody thinks abortion is a lot of fun.

Most Democrats are pro-choice. The government should not be in the business of telling women what they should do about pregnancies. Full stop.

I've know women who have terminated pregnancies. None of them did it lightly. It is condescending and contrary to politically conservative ideals to believe the government has any role in telling women when it is permissible for them to terminate a pregnancy.

I have a daughter. She is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I hope she experiences the joy of raising a child one day. I also hope she has the choice to terminate a pregnancy for whatever reason, as well as the wisdom to know if that reason is sound.

I hope she does not live in a world where the government decides for her what reasons are valid for such a monumental decision.

Democrats are pro-abortion, not pro-choice. They want to regulate the food we eat, the movies we watch, the games we play. The only "choice" they give a fuck about is the choice to have an abortion.

Evangelicals are anti-abortion, not pro-life. You cannot call yourself pro-life and support capital punishment.

The issue is abortion. All the euphemisms are bullshit meant to distract people from that fact.

I've never met a single person who said "Yay! Abortion!"

Well, OK, maybe a few dickholes on the Internet looking to get a rise out of people, but that hardly counts.

The issue is choice. Both sides are interested in taking our choices away. (Dems aren't the only ones who'd like to control the movies you watch and the games you play.) They just tend to obsess over different choices.

They main story here really isn't one of pro-choice or pro-life at all for this woman. She WANTED this baby. She didn't WANT to have an abortion. She was left in LABOR for 10 DAYS with horrible contractions until her baby died because, even though it was slowly dying inside of her for those 10 horrible days, the doctors could induce labor or abort her baby until it was dead because they could have been in trouble for performing a late term abortion. I don't care what side of the fence you are on, NO WOMAN should have to suffer through that!

*couldn't induce labor or abort her baby

Sorry, typo.

So they couldn't go do a c-section and deliver it as a preemie?

If it's a case where the baby's dead either way, it's a wash. It's not really an abortion at that point, it's an assisted miscarriage.

But that's what happens when room-temperature IQ politicians write the laws that doctors and engineers must follow.

@monica -

Every single censorship bill related to movies or video games that has been proposed in my lifetime was written by a democrat.

don't tell me there's no difference. I know better.

"Every single censorship bill related to movies or video games that has been proposed in my lifetime was written by a democrat."

Ditto gun control laws.

You are a child, incapable of responsibility.

Finally...someone else who's willing to say that the Tea Party isn't JUST about fiscal responsibility. To hear some on this board tell it, the Tea Party's only issue is balancing the budget and stop spending money we don't have. It is not their only issue. Never has been. And, sadly, never will be. -- Patrick at March 20, 2011 11:12 PM

Patrick,

I have never attended a Tea Party event, am not personal friends with any Tea Party member that I know of, etc.

This is the same as any other individual in any party, group, organization, or any collection of people. You will have right wing, very christian, moralistic people to the middle of the road to left thinking people.

Again you are missing the point -- I don't care about social issues. What you do that doesn't effect me -- I don't give a rat's a**. But when your decision effects me -- having a litter of children and expecting me to pick up the tab, you are effecting me.

Same as expecting me to fund your retirement when you have $3M in the bank, have your home free and clear and you work a tech job that lets you have it easy at 65.

If you have social issues, take it up with your city, county, or state government. Don't expect me, in Ohio, to fund your bullet train in Florida.