By Dave Andrusko
Annmarie Condit
Annmarie Condit’s opinion piece in the Cincinnati Enquirer, “Why abortion isn’t just a women’s issue” was in response to a prior piece in the Enquirer that celebrated the wonderfulness of Planned Parenthood and critiqued the legislature’s decision to pass a bill that prohibits the state from contracting for health services with any organization that performs or promotes abortions, which includes $1 million in government funds to Planned Parenthood.
Referring to “a number of GOP members,” the previous writer (Jamie Stocker) contended that they should have no voice because “the abortion argument” doesn’t “affect them.”
Warming to the task, by her penultimate paragraph, Stocker (a recent University of Cincinnati graduate) concludes, “It is our time to stand up and fight these systems of patriarchy and declare our position of equality as women of the United States.”
Etc., etc., etc.
Condit, who is a graduate student, substitutes reasoning for anger, thoughtfulness for pro-abortion cant. As her headline –“Abortion isn’t just a women’s issue”–makes clear, she appreciates that debating whether we dispose of the next generation is the kind of preeminent issue that involves all of us.
She uses a familiar pro-life comparison–slavery. Her point, which was very nicely made, was that there were prominent Americans who understoodd the evil of slavery but made peace with their consciences by “justify[ing] it with weak insistence that abolishing it would bring about another ‘evil.’”
Condit asks
Can we acknowledge the evil of abortion, but justify funding Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country, simply because of the other “services” it provides? This is a question that we should all be asking.
She immediately adds
It’s worth noting here the money that was recently diverted from Planned Parenthood is simply being redirected to other community health providers that do not provide abortions.
But the greater point comes in the middle of her op-ed
Some issues concern all of us simply because we’re human, and I believe abortion is one of them.
Do I have to have a mental disability or be very old and ill to protest “assisting” the suicides of people who cannot stand up for themselves?
Would I have to be a woman to stand against spousal abuse?
Or be five years old to be appalled by child neglect?
No, wrong is wrong and we needn’t be the victim of a particular abuse to do everything in our power to peacefully, legally end it.
Why? Our involvement is justified for many reasons but first “because we’re human.”
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