A Battle Over Unborn Citizens

I've always had respect for many folks who are anti-abortion.  A deeply held pro-life position includes a strong commitment to both prenatal health and health after birth.  But the abortion issue often tends to eclipse these other components of this overall pro-life perspective.  To some degree, this is understandable: if you believe that abortion is murder, the extent of carnage radically outweighs the damage done by lousy health care to moms and children.  To some degree this is the product of a marriage between ideals and politics: if Republicans are your patrons, you'd better stick to the party line on other issues as well, no matter how distasteful.

Thus we currently have a  battle in Nebraska between the anti-immigrant (pro-lifers) who don't want to extend health services to pregnant undocumented aliens and those who are pro-life first…and who believe that a damaged life is unacceptable, even if it belongs to the future child of someone in the U.S. illegally.  Of course, if the pro-life folks are being intellectually honest  consistent – if they believe that the unborn fetus is actually a child – that child is probably going to be a natural born citizen.  As such, it should not be excluded from services at all.

Politics is complicated business.  WWJD in Nebraska?  I doubt that's even a close call.

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