Tag Archives: Abortion

Arbitrary Rights

Posted by Tim on

Rights. Our Declaration of Independence claims that men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our Constitution lists a handful of rights as well. The first amendment guarantees citizens the right to free speech and freedom of the press, along with freedom to assemble and worship whatever religion they would like. These are true rights, but today more and more things are being called “rights”. I call them arbitrary rights.

One of the hot button issues of the day is the so-called right to birth control as well as the right to an abortion, otherwise known as “women’s rights”. The first thing about a true right is that it is not a material item. If it were, then anyone could claim anything is a “right” and demand that the government provide it for them. “Its my right to own a Ferrari! Give me my Ferrari!” Birth control is no different. People don’t  have a right to things, they have a right to buy them. Having a right to something means that someone else has an obligation to provide it for you, which is utter nonsense.

The 2nd amendment guarantees citizens the right to keep and bear arms. This does not mean, however, that the government, or more clearly – the taxpayer – has an obligation to provide every citizen with a firearm. It also does not mean that every citizen can be forced to buy a firearm, the way Obamacare forces citizens to buy health insurance. Women have a right to buy birth control, but that does not mean that someone else has the obligation to pay for it. No one is saying that women shouldn’t be allowed to buy whatever birth control they want. What we’re saying is that women can provide it for themselves and not depend on government handouts.

Abortion is a little stickier of an issue, because along with claiming one person has a “right” to an abortion, another person is losing their most valuable right – the right to life. The right to life is given to everyone, no matter what country they live in or what time they lived. The right is given by God, not government. Taking someone’s life, whether they are still inside their mother or not, is wrong. Therefore, a person cannot have the “right” to take away someone else’s right.

Again, though, we need to realize that even if we deem abortion as morally acceptable and say that an unborn child has no rights, that does not mean that abortion is automatically a right. A woman has the right to go to her doctor and pay him to have an abortion performed, but she does not have the right to demand that her fellow citizens pay for it. Abortion is such a divisive issue that one could say taking one person’s tax dollars and using it in a way that they see as morally reprehensible is an infringement on their freedom of speech. One man’s labor should not be confiscated and given to someone else to provide them with arbitrary rights.

Among the most popular new “rights” that have been created out of thin air is the “right to healthcare”. People need to realize that healthcare is like any other arbitrary right. Healthcare is a product. People have the right to buy this product with their own money, but they do not have the right to demand that someone else provide it for them. Healthcare is often seen as some kind of special commodity, as if it weren’t a scarce resource whose prices respond to supply and demand the way everything else does. Healthcare is a product, plain and simple, and the “right” to it is an arbitrary right.

Some may argue that healthcare IS a right because without it our right to life would be infringed; therefore everyone must be provided with healthcare, one way or another. Taken another way, we could say that without food people’s lives would be at stake, therefore everyone has the right to food. This is not the case. Food is not a right. No one has the obligation to provide a meal to anyone else. It is not anyone’s responsibility to give other people what it takes to live. Healthcare is no different. If anyone wants it, they can get it for themselves. Its not the government’s (taxpayer’s) responsibility to provide it.

The way humans measure their time and labor is in money. No one has unlimited labor, and therefore everyone has a right to earn what they can and keep it. We have taxes to provide for a government that secures rights given to us by God. The government is here to protect us from people who may want to take our lives and liberty. But government is not here to “give” us any object that our heart desires, whether it be birth control pills or “universal” healthcare. The only way government could do such things is by confiscating our labor, which is our lifeblood. At a certain point, a government who just takes people’s labor turns citizens into subjects. The power of the individual is suffocated and citizens are transformed into tools of the state.

The Contraception Debate

Posted by Tim on

I received a phone call today from a good friend who I hadn’t talked to in some time. We’d texted back and forth for a few minutes, but he decided to call me. He wanted my opinion. He’d been getting into an argument over the whole contraceptive issue that’s been all the craze. Now, it was a Facebook argument, so there’s a big no-no right away. It’s nearly impossible to win an argument via Facebook, which is why I rarely get involved. For me, the most important place to voice my opinion is here, on TimPreuss.com, where I can say everything I need to say, without bickering back and forth with idiots.

As we were talking I said something along the lines of, “I could write an essay about everything wrong with that argument.” Well – I’m going to. That argument is the one we’ve been hearing about constantly over the past couple weeks. It’s the issue of contraception, and who should pay for it.

Before I get too deep into the issue, I want to go over what the issue is NOT. No one is saying that women should not be allowed to buy birth control. No one is saying that birth control is wrong, or that every woman who is on birth control is a slut. (Limbaugh reference?) In fact, conservatives like myself fully support the right of women to chose whether or not to use birth control, and what type to use. It’s their body, it’s their money – buy whatever you want.

Here’s the first hold up – taxpayer dollars should not be spent on birth control. Our government spends way too much money. We spend too much on entitlement programs, we spend too much on union labor, and we spend too much on useless, yet expensive, bureaucrats. It is not the government’s job to provide birth control pills for anyone. Furthermore, it’s not the government’s job to provide healthcare, period. People may insist that birth control is used for more than just birth control (cramps, acne, whacked out hormones, etc.), but that doesn’t mean that it’s a problem for the federal government to deal with.

In the end, it’s each individual’s responsibility to provide for themselves. I know, that’s a startling concept, given that literally from cradle to grave, we have our government “looking out” for us. Can’t feed yourself? Food stamps. Can’t buy medical care? Medicaid. Can’t educate yourself? Public schools and public scholarships. Can’t retire? Social security. Well, the gravy train has to come to a halt. When we encourage people to live off the government, we make people dependent. A person cannot be dependent AND free.

The other equally large issue at hand is that government should not be able to tell an employer or an insurance company what they have to provide. Some people complain that their insurance doesn’t cover contraception. Well, it’s time to find an insurance plan that suits your needs. There are thousands of options, and its more than likely that one of them will include covering birth control. But its the insurance company’s right to decide what their plans will cover and won’t cover. No one, including the federal government, should be able to tell a business what products they produce. If an insurance company doesn’t want to pay for birth control, that’s their decision, and if customers don’t like it, don’t buy that brand of insurance.

But the issue doesn’t stop there. Not only is the government telling insurance companies what they have to cover, but they’re telling employers what insurance plans they have to provide for their employees. If an employer only offers a plan that doesn’t include coverage for birth control, the employee can either buy insurance independently of their employer, or they can find a new job. A business should not be forced to provide something it does not want to provide.

And there’s more. Not only do businesses have to provide insurance that covers contraception, but even religious institutions have to provide it. This creates huge problems. The Catholic church is 100% against birth control. I don’t agree with their stance personally, but it’s their religion, and we have religious freedom. (I think.) The government cannot force a religious institution to provide birth control for their employees, if birth control is against their religion. This sets enormous precedent. No longer are you free to practice your religion. First, you must practice Obama, THEN practice your religion if it complies with Obama’s vision for America.

The issue at hand is much more than birth control. It has to do with the size of government, freedom of religion, and the ever growing entitlement mentality in America. Do not dismiss this as a minor issue – it’s important. Very important. The founding principles of our nation are at stack – personal responsibility, small limited government, religious freedom. Don’t push this issue under the rug or underestimate it’s importance.

The Right to Life

Posted by Tim on

Let’s make some waves…

For a number of years we were in the political climate that pushed social issues to the backseat. We had loads of new hybrid ideologies. So called “fiscal conservatives” and “moderates” began to come out of the woodwork. Social issues like immigration and gay marriage were looked over. The important thing was our economy. Well, all that changed recently. Abortion, the Catholic church, and the federal government are all tangled up in a web of confusion.

My take on virtually everything is simplicity. Don’t make issues more complicated than they are. But abortion is an issue that seems to make everything more complicated. It gets people’s emotions going. Women’s “rights” protestors, pro “choice” advocates, and femi-nazis all make a lot of noise over the issue of abortion. To me it’s real simple though. Here’s a way I explain the issue to someone who is undecided.

Imagine for a moment, if you will, that you are married, and that both you and your spouse have decent jobs. You decide the time is right and you want to start a family. You plan everything out, get your budget in order, and read a few parenting books. Your wife is pregnant, and you’re super excited to be a dad. One night while your wife is walking to her car after a late night at work someone pushes her down, and attempts to steal her purse. While she’s on the ground, she attempts to stop him, and he in turn kicks her in the stomach. He actually kicks her so hard that he kills her unborn baby.

Now, what will happen to this man? Does he go to jail for assault and robbery, or assault, robbery AND murder? I imagine most moms would say murder had taken place. Her baby, though unborn, was still a life that he ended. I agree with moms who would take such a position. That man deserves to be charged with murder.

The other end of the spectrum is someone who doesn’t want their baby. This woman is single, still in school, and unemployed. She had a rough week, went out and drank too much, and wound up making a huge mistake. She slept with someone she doesn’t know, and is pregnant. She’s scared, and just wants an abortion so she can move on with her life and forget about her mistake. She goes to a doctor, and he uses some fancy vacuum cleaner to suck her baby out of her – ending the child’s life.

In both cases a child was killed, a life was lost. But only one was called murder, the other was called abortion. Sounds like a twisted double standard, right? What we are in turn saying is that a life is only a life if we say it is. We’re saying that one person can determine another person’s worth. A baby is only a baby only if it’s mother wants it.

Carry this kind of thinking to adults and we’re saying that one person should be allowed to kill another, if they think it’s right. Is that how justice works? No. The circumstances do not determine whether a life has value, whether a child has a soul, or whether God has a plan for a child. We are all God’s children, and to use our own standards to decide whether an innocent life is worth keeping is not only stepping out of bounds, it’s making decisions that only God can make.

You see, humans have certain unalienable rights, and among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Notice which one came first – life. And the reason we have the right to life is not because some person gave us that right, or because our government grants us that right. It’s a right that comes from God. If God knew us before we were in the womb, doesn’t it make sense that we were given the right to life before we were born? Yes. And to take away that right, the right to life, is without a doubt wrong.

Not a lot of people will come out and say that. It’s not always easy to say what you believe. Sometimes its not easy to know what you believe. But people talk, people ask questions, and people want to know. I’m a fiscal conservative, but where do I stand on abortion?  There you have it. You know where I stand, and more importantly I know where I stand. Where do you stand? Think about it.