I just saw this article posted yesterday in the Boston Daily online magazine:
The Sex Education of Mitt Romney by Barry Nolan
It discusses an audience question directed toward GOP presidential campaigner Mitt Romney. Essentially the questioning went:
Do you believe life starts at conception? Yes
That would mean banning most forms of conception. Why are you against conception? To which Mitt, apparently, responded with a stunned silence.
The article then critisizes him for his seeming lack of knowledge of the functioning of contraception, stating the questioner was correct.
To which I respond with saddness at the seeming lack of logical deduction abilities in the average reporter today... and with the following observation (originally intended as a comment on the site, but since they require the article to be shared on facebook before comment, I chose not to):
------->I'm not republican (by a long shot), but I will suggest that perhaps Mitt was 'tripped up' by the seeming illogical 1+1 = 3 of the question. If anti-abortionists believe life starts at conception and contraceptives prevent conception, then fertilization has obviously not taken place and there is no issue of whether you're harming life because there is no life there to harm--from anyone's point of view.
For contraceptives to be considered harmful to life, even by anti-abortionist views, life would have to be considered to start at the level of sperm or egg. That would be a difficult sell, however, since male masterbation or, indeed, a woman's menstration could both be considered acts of murder. In fact, couples would still be committing murder even if sex lead to fertilization, since only 1 in millions of sperm 'survives' (oh yeah, and since sperm die after a few days anyway, whether used or not, men would be committing murder just by existing).<-------
This article exposes some of the craziness that arises around the issue of abortion. Especially when it's mixed with politics.
