Abortion Talk with my Parents

So I'm staying with my folks for a few days as another pseudo-vacation with my kids (Six Flags sucks ass), and got into a conversation with both of them independently about the issue of abortion. Now, they're both pro-life devout Catholics and really buy into all that stuff. My dad is a Deacon in the Church, which gives him the power to baptise, marry, and bury people; sometimes at the same time. These two are firm in their beliefs and are totally old school about the whole thing.

But oddly enough, in both cases, neither of them felt comfortable when I asked them if abortion should be illegal. It wasn't even meant to be a "gotcha" kind of question at all, as I was trying to lead my point somewhere else, yet both of them hesitated when I asked and clearly felt uncomfortable with the idea. My dad went so far as to say that he doesn't think abortion should be illegal, and he didn't believe me when I suggested that Republicans want to make it illegal. Now, this is the same dad who doubted Obama's citizenship, based partly on a misunderstanding of which of Obama's parents was from Kenya. So while his conservative views are entrenched, they're not necessarily the best informed.

And yet, I suspect that this is the case with quite a few people. Their opposition to abortion is firm and they're more than happy to talk about third trimester abortions until the cows come home, yet when it comes to the actual issue of punishment, these people really aren't thinking this through all the way. Hell, they didn't even want to talk about how their position uses the government to impose this on people.

Because yeah, sure, abortions aren't the best option in the world. In fact, they're a pretty piss poor option for dummies who forgot to use a rubber. But...when it comes to imprisoning doctors for committing abortions, that's really just not their style. Nobody gets an abortion without a good reason. Sadly, my mom disagreed with that, though I don't think she knew what she was saying.

Oh yeah, Six Flags sucks ass.