Who Practices "Pugilistic" Politics


Popular anti-abortion columnist David French claims he and others rejected Trump's pugilistic approach to politics. French notes correctly that supporting Trump and his bold appointment of forced-birth Supreme Court Judges has come at a large political cost. Abortion rights have been codified in a couple states and the numbers of abortions affected little. French rejects the "pugilistic" nature of Trump and his hard-core circle of support.  

French claims his position is better. He supports abortion for the usual blather of "life of the mother," "rape" and blah blah blah. Further sensitivity in his position, he says, is that women who do not want a pregnancy need sympathy and support. He supports religious "pregnancy centers." Like many who have commented here on this blog, he views himself as "compassionate" and the opposite of being "pugilistic." He is wrong. 

Like with so many things in politics and religion, the truth is disguised by sweet language. In reality, this is the truth: Forcing pregnant women to give birth is pugilistic. French does not understand his own pugilism in his forced-birth political views.

There are some things in abortion debates that are hard to be precise about. Other things are easy. Let's start with a hard one. What is a position about abortion that is "morally sound?" If the fetus is a human being, being opposed to destroying it is morally sound. If the fetus is part of the woman body, it is not morally sound to pass laws about what she can and cannot do with her body. The latter is especially unsound when the laws about her body are based only on religious beliefs. Without agreement on what the fetus is it is impossible to agree on a universal definition of sound morals. 

Lets move to something easy, economics. When government passes laws which impose unjustifiable costs on one set of citizens but not on another, we have a problem. The cost of raising a child to age 18 was estimated at $100,000 several years ago. The cost of an abortion is more or less $1,000. It is simply unjust to impose the $100,000 without some reason that goes to the benefit of the entire society. When those who want to impose force-birth on women are forcing the religious views on others, they should pay the $100,000. 

In the final analysis, Trump is practicing pugilistic politics but so is French. Even tougher pugilism is being practiced by women insisting on abortion rights. 

  

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