Muse – What is Bush?

This is an interesting post(Which I didn’t write) on Gaia. I thought I’d repost it here for comments.

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Disclaimer: I do not intend for this to turn into a Bush-bashing or abortion thread. I’m also going to assume Bush is reasonably well-informed and competent for this analysis.

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I believe that despite his repeated professions of being pro-life, Bush’s actions indicate that he is far more concerned with appearing to be pro-life than actually saving the lives of blastula, embryos, fetuses (to be abbreviated as b/e/f), and their mothers.

My reasons for arguing thus:

1) Bush withheld federal funding to all international organizations that so much mentioned abortion as an option to pregnant women. At first, this sounds like an action intended to prevent abortions and saves lives of b/e/f.

However, many, if not all, of these organizations offer other services besides abortions: prenatal and other health care, contraceptives, and information on family planning; in fact, these tend to be their main focus, with abortion part of their prenatal care & family planning service. And the loss of contraceptives means more unwanted pregnancies; the loss of prenatal care makes pregnancy, already risky in the poorer parts of the world where these organizations do most of their work, dangerous enough that some women prefer the dangers of abortion to that of continuing their pregnancies. This increases the number of abortions; the loss of prenatal care also increases the mortality rate of the b/e/f, infants, and their mothers.

On particular organization, the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA) lost $34 million, and estimated that that money could have been used to

“prevent up to 800,000 induced abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths annually worldwide.” (Numbers http://www.unpfa.org and http://www.34millionfriends.org )

Rather than reducing the number of abortions worldwide, Bush’s decision to withold funding to the UNPFA and other organizations instead increased them, in addition to increasing the numbers of deaths of women, children, and infants. However, the decision has the benefit of appearing to save lives if you don’t do any research.

2) Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. Again, at first, this appears to be an action that would save the lives of fetuses. However, the law suffers from two fatal flaws that render it unconstitutional. These flaws were known when the bill was being considered – many opponants brought up previous court cases, including a USSC ruling, where such bans lacking exceptions to protect the mother’s health and failing to define the vague term “partial-birth abortion” (which has no medical or legal content).

Knowing of this precident, if Bush truely wanted the law to remain in effect (rather than being suspended and eventually ruled unconstitutional), he could have announced that he would veto the bill unless these flaws were corrected, thus avoiding the legal precident making it unconstitutional. Some argue that D&X is never necessary or even the best option to protect a woman’s health, but these have been hotly contested; if it truly is never the best option, then an exception on such grounds will just be a clause that’s never applied, and so there’s little harm in adding it; it it is sometimes necessary, then omitting it risks the health and lives of many women.

By signing into law a bill with these flaws, Bush demonstrates that he is more concerned with appearing pro-life than with actually protecting women and fetuses.

3) The number one cause of abortion is unwanted pregnancy, yet Bush pushes for abstinence-only sex ed programs (in place of those that teach about contraceptives) that are increasingly being found ineffective in reducing unwanted pregnancies and STDs (or even teen or premarital sex). His administration also supressed information that non-abstiance-only programs are effective, according to the report released earlier this year by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Once more, this indicates that Bush is more interested in appealing to certain groups (such as the religious right) than actually preventing abortions and saving lives.

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So… Rebuttels? Corroborating or opposing evidence? Request for further sources?  

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Ren’s reply: I think Bush is painfully short sighted, rather than not pro-life. He and his ilk made the ban, but assumed it wouldn’t be challenged, which was a stupid assumption to make. They withheld the money without looking deeper or perhaps did so on the moral point rather than the practical point. Bush is just like every other politician. They go for basic, simple solutions to complex problems which only results in other complex problems.  

What do you think, dear readers? Is Bush false or merely short sighted? Or something else.