Tonight’s presidential debate was quite a bit better than I anticipated. Usually, these “town hall debates” do little but showcase the ignorance of the voting populace. But this time, I was pleasantly surprised because most of the questions were actually decent questions. Of course, anybody paying attention to the campaigns already knows the answers to all of the questions asked, but at least the questions weren’t insipid as they tend to be in these settings.
One exchange that really sticks out in my mind is where Kerry basically states his position that poor people don’t have enough abortions.
Asked about federal funding of abortions, Kerry launched into a litany about the right of a woman to kill her unborn child. This showed an immense amount of disrespect to the woman who asked the question, because her question stipulated that abortion is legal in our country, and her question wasn’t about whether or not abortion should be legal. But after a while, Kerry finally got around to addressing her question.
“…and making certain that you don’t deny a poor person the right to be able to have whatever the constitution affords them if they can’t afford it otherwise.”
Kerry said that if abortion is guaranteed as a right by the US Constitution, then the federal government needs to help people who can’t afford it. Here Kerry made two points:
1. That if something is a right guaranteed by the Constitution, that the federal government is obligated to give it to people who don’t have the means. I wonder, does this extend to gun ownership? Kerry has gone to great lengths to hide his record in the Senate of legislating against the Second Amendment, so far as to brandish a hunting firearm at a rally. So, if someone is too poor to afford that weapon, which the Constitution guarantees him a right to own, is Kerry going to make the government give him one? And if the Constitution guarantees my right to own property, does the government have to give me property I can’t afford?
2. Kerry basically argued that poor people don’t have enough abortions. He went on about family planning (code words for killing unborn children) and said that a poor person shouldn’t be denied the right to an abortion just because they can’t afford the procedure. He is now arguing for MORE POOR PEOPLE TO HAVE ABORTIONS. Since the federal government does not currently pay for poor people to have abortions, he is by logical extension arguing that not enough poor people have abortions (otherwise, why fund them? Obviously Kerry sees some kind of need not being met).
What does Kerry have against poor people? Not everyone can marry wealthy women like he did (there are only so many of them to go around, and he’s married TWO already). Why single them out for more abortions?
Now, some of you probably are thinking that I am taking this way too far — that Kerry doesn’t really believe that we need more abortions. After all, Kerry also said that we need LESS abortions in the US. Well, indeed he did say that. But this is yet another instance where he is trying to have it both ways.
When Kerry argues for more funding for after-school programs, does that mean he thinks more kids need after-school programs? Of course. If someone takes the position that the federal government needs to pay for more police officers, doesn’t that imply that the same person believes that there are not enough police officers? Kerry is saying that the federal government needs to pay for abortions for poor people. This implies two things quite clearly and unmistakably: that Kerry believes that not enough poor people are having abortions, and that the government needs to step in and make sure more poor people have abortions.