Over at the Corner, attorney and former Scalia law clerk Ed Whelan muses that if Roe v. Wade has been decided in, say, 1960, then John McCain wouldn’t be losing the election right now, because Obama’s mother would clearly have had an abortion.
Former Fetus Barack Obama [Ed Whelan] Nearly 48 years ago, a young woman, not yet 18, became pregnant in her freshman year of college. Living in a time and place in which abortion was generally illegal, she proceeded to marry the father of her child and gave birth to a son. Perhaps she would have done so irrespective of the abortion laws at the time, even if, say, she lived in a legal culture that celebrated abortion as a fundamental right.
“Hey, I hope you guys are coming to our annual Abortion Celebration tonight…It’s gonna get cuh-RAAAA-zy. Helen’s bringing hotdish and I hear we’re gonna have Saline the Clown and a piñata shaped like a uterus. Oh! And don’t forget to sign the card before you leave; it’s Cindy’s Partial Birthday tomorrow.”
Very possibly not. (I haven’t found any statistics on the percentage of pregnant college freshmen who abort their pregnancies, but indirect indications suggest that it’s very high.)
And these indications are strongly supported by Ed’s Magic 8-Ball, which said, “Signs Point to Yes” the third time he shook it.
Barack Obama may actually believe, as he stated yesterday, that Roe v. Wade “was rightly decided.” But it may be very lucky for him, as the son born of that woman, that it hadn’t been decided a dozen or so years earlier.
Ed’s basically making the same point as those t-shirts which read, “Smile! Your Mom Chose Life,” except his Cafe Press merchandise designed specifically for men with a touch of the tarbrush (octaroons and above) who were conceived out of wedlock and born prior to 1973 would read: “Smile! Your Mother Had No Choice, Otherwise She Totallty Would Have Aborted You.”
That Obama may owe his very life to a pre-Roe legal regime that banned abortion is, to be sure, not necessarily a reason that he should favor that regime (though I can’t help noting that Justice Thomas’s critics recklessly accuse him of hypocrisy for opposing racial-preference plans that they say he benefited from).
Let me see if I’m following Ed’s logic here…Since young women in their first year of college will sometimes terminate unplanned pregnancies, Obama is only alive because abortion was illegal when he was gestating, so if he adopts a position as President which respects a woman’s right to control her own body, it’s as hypocritical as rich men, like John Edwards, caring about poor people. But because nobody dies from affirmative action, it’s fine if Thomas benefits from the program, then pulls the ladder up after him and yells “so long, suckers!” to anybody in line behind him. Because he’s had a libertarian epiphany.
But it ought to lead Obama and others to think more carefully about the valuable role that protective abortion laws play.
“Protective Abortion Laws: Ruining Women’s Lives Today, While Protecting the Potential Presidential Fetuses of the Future.”
Okey doke, then. Cafe Press, here we come…
Oh brother!
Can the logic get any MORE tortured???
Not for nothing, but this election cycle and the crash-and-burn epic fail of the GOP and their candidates has created so much ruckus from the apple sauce suckers of the 101st Keyboard Kommandos (h/t The Editors) that it’s actually wearing me out!
I never, EVER, imagined I’d tire of laughing so loudly!
Left by actor212 on October 16th, 2008