Ten Things Conservatives Can Do (Or Not) To Improve The World

Conservatives in the United States and around the world tend to focus their policy-making on prohibitions and abolitions: from drugs, to abortion, to science, to the government itself, all they do is focused on trying to stop others.  The irony is that others don’t want to make conservatives do anything at all: in fact, nobody actually counts on them to do things, since they’re focused on not doing things.  Debates rage in societies about dozens of issues regarding the proper role of government, morality, and even science.  Often in these discussions, conservatives tend to proclaim that the other side shouldn’t do this or that, and then advocate for some sort of prohibition or other.  Given the repressive nature of this group of society, I thought it might do good to propose to them, briefly, solutions to the hot-button issues in a way they can understand (i.e., things they can avoid doing themselves).

1. Against abortion? Don’t have one.  First of all, assuming conservatives are 50-50 male-female, half of them should have nothing to say about this issue.  Second, there is no such thing as anyone who is pro-abortion; there are just those who realize abortion does more harm when it is illegal than when it is legal, and those who don’t.  Pro-life is, as the late great George Carlin said, anti-woman.
2. Don’t like homosexual marriage? Don’t marry one.  OK, so two guys three houses down the street live together an want to get married.  Does that in any way affect their neighbor’s relationship with his/her wife/husband?  If the answer is no, then you there’s nothing to fear from gay marriage.  If the answer is yes, then there’s a lot to gain from it!
3. Don’t want universal public health care? Pay for your own.  If people don’t have to worry about going broke when they get sick, does that make them less free, or more?
4. Think global warming is a hoax? Get out of the way and let the rest of us fix it.  The potential costs of not doing anything far outweigh the costs of doing something unnecessary or ineffective.  If we add to that the fact that it’s already happening—you don’t even need to bother with the science, just look at the news—getting out of the way and letting the rest of us do something is the least conservatives can do.
5. Don’t believe in evolution?  Fine, just let the man give his biology class.  We don’t teach numerology along with math, alchemy with chemistry, homeopathy with physics, or holocaust denial with history.  If skinheads can sit through history class, then surely Christians can sit through biology.
6.  Don’t like assisted suicide?  Then don’t do it.  Death can be a painful and humiliating experience, but it doesn’t have to be.  If we can choose to die, or to suffer miserably, drag our family with us, and then die anyway, how is that choice difficult at all?
7. Don’t like migrants? Don’t hire them.  Pretty self-explanatory.
8. Think drugs are bad? Don’t do them.  Same principle as abortion.  Besides, we know what will happen if we legalize: just look at Portugal.
9. Don’t want stem cell research? Don’t use it.  There will be more for the rest of us and we’ll need less of point #6.
10. Don’t like free speech?  Then shut up!  If you have ridiculous ideas, then you will be ridiculed.  If your ideas are not respectable, they will not be respected.

In short, all conservatives have to do is be people of congruence and integrity.  Nobody is going to make them marry a homosexual, do drugs, have an abortion, kill themselves, or anything that goes against what they believe… All the rest of us ask of them in return is that they don’t legislate their opinions onto our lives.  If they want to be backward superstitious bigots, then that’s fine!  When they give up sovereignty over their own bodies and minds, they hurt nobody but themselves.  Meanwhile, those of us who care about civilization and progress can move forward, and everybody wins.

La ONU Comienza a Ponerse al Corriente (LGBT)

A casi tres años de haber sido propuesta por primera vez, el día de hoy la Organización de Las Naciones Unidas aprobó, por estrecho margen de 23-19-3, una resolución en la que se pide llevar a cabo estudios acerca de la discriminación en contra de miembros de la comunidad Lesbiana, Gay, Transgénero y Transexual (LGBT).  A pesar de que solamente se acuerda llevar a cabo los estudios, la resolución A/HRC/17/L.9/Rev.1 es interpretada como una condena a la violencia en contra de personas LGBT.  En 2008, una propuesta similar elaborada por Francia y Holanda se quedó abierta sin que ninguno de los países miembros la ratificaran.  Así mismo, la Liga Árabe creo una contra-resolución que también ha quedado sin ratificación hasta la fecha.  Vale la pena mencionar que la resolución recién aprobada fue propuesta no por un país europeo, sino por Sudáfrica.

Entre los países que votaron a favor se encuentran México, Sudáfrica, Corea del Sur, Argentina, Chile, España y Estados Unidos.  Entre los países que votaron en contra destaca Rusia como único país europeo que no la aprobó, mientras que China fue uno de los tres países que se abstuvieron en la votación.

Un punto que me parece importante resaltar es lo tarde que llega esta resolución.  Desde principios de los 90 que la misma ONU removió la homosexualidad de la lista de enfermedades mentales, y desde finales de esa misma década comenzaron las legalizaciones de matrimonios homosexuales en países como Canadá y Holanda.  Virtualmente toda la Unión Europea está libre de homofobia en cuanto a la legislación se refiere desde hace varios años, y varios países del continente americano ya han emprendido medidas para legalizar dichas uniones también.  Entonces, llama la atención que la resolución (que no es obligatoria) simplemente llama a hacer un estudio acerca de la discriminación en los países miembros de la ONU, implicando que dicha discriminación es reprobable pero sin explícitamente condenarla.  ¿Cuánto tiempo más tardarán en promover una resolución obligatoria en donde se reconozcan todos los derechos de esta comunidad, incluyendo el de matrimonio?

El otro punto importante a notar es que, precisamente, los países que votaron en contra hacen la admisión implícita de que ellos sí discriminan contra la comunidad gay y consideran que no tiene nada de malo, o por lo menos prefieren que se mantenga secreta la medida en que lo hacen.  La propuesta no fue de legislar contra la violencia, ni de legalizar nada, ni de siquiera hacer una campaña de conciencia.  ¡Tan solo se pidió hacer un estudio donde se documentara la violencia contra la comunidad LGBT!  No es sorprendente, entonces, que los países que votaron en contra fueran principalmente africanos y asiáticos (fundamentalistas católicos y musulmanes), con las honorables excepciones de Sudáfrica (autor de la iniciativa), Japón, Corea del Sur y Tailandia.

Poco a poco, lento pero seguro, la pelea por los derechos de las minorías sexuales toma un lugar protagónico en la agenda mundial.  Sabemos que la ONU tiene un valor más bien simbólico en el mundo, pero es un símbolo muy grande y visible.  Si la resolución no sirve para emprender acciones concretas contra la discriminación, por lo menos se comenzará un examen de conciencias en los países retrógradas que todavía no consideran que algunas personas sean personas.

Legal Abortion Saves Lives. No, Really!

This an English version of my post in Spanish on abortion in Mexico, but it’s not a word-for-word translation, since the status of abortion is different in America.  However, the reasons I’ll give for keeping abortion legal in the States come from the same arguments for its legalization in Mexico.  Given that this is always a raging topic of discussion in American social and political life, I thought it appropriate to comment on it.  Hopefully, the perspective from an outsider will help contribute a grain of sand to the debate.

There’s but two arguments that I’d like to present for keeping abortion legal in America; both come from a practical approach to the situation.  I know that the usual debate about the issue centers mostly on the humanity-citizenship of the fetus on one hand, and the individual reproductive rights of women on the other.  However, I don’t need to get into that discussion for the practical reasons that abortion should be kept legal.  The debate is certainly very entertaining, but I think there are practical points to be made that trump any argument for the humanity of the fetus, at the same time that they don’t require any feminism (not that that’s a bad thing).  Therefore I will, for the sake of argument, concede right now that a zygote, an embryo, a fetus, and a baby are equivalent.  I don’t actually think they are, but it’s actually not relevant to my points.  The only thing I ask the pro-life reader in return is to recognize that the lives of the women involved are just as valuable as those of their unborn.  Fair enough?  Well, here goes:

On The Purpose of Laws

Why do we actually make things illegal?  Sure, there’s the intention dissuading people from certain behavior, but that has no effect on reality.  Homicide is illegal, and yet it happens everyday.  The same goes for fraud, kidnapping, burglaries, etc.  Making something illegal has little or no effect in actually convincing people not to do it.  The real, practical reason we have laws is to have legal justification for sending people to jail.  So the question then becomes: why do we send people to jail?  Obviously, rehabilitation is not the answer.  Sure, there’s the odd case of an exemplary prisoner who turns his life around but, for the most part, criminals are worse after they go to jail.  So the thing that jail is useful for is, actually, to remove an individual from society.  Society says to the criminal: “You may not care or understand that what you did was wrong, but at least we’ll make sure you won’t be able to keep doing it.”  That’s what jail is about.

Practical Argument for Legal Abortion #1: Crime & Punishment

What should be the penalty for aborting, assuming it were illegal?  In Mexico, the penalty depends on the circumstances of the abortion but is usually no less than 10 years in prison.  But is this fair or necessary?  Depending on the term of the pregnancy, an abortion may be possible through the administration of hormonal drugs that basically induce a miscarriage.  However, this procedure doesn’t always work, and surgical methods are usually required to complete the abortion.  If the pregnancy is more advanced at the point of abortion, then the surgical method is the only viable option.  Do women like going through these procedures?  Does anyone seriously think that women enjoy abortions?  The surgical procedure is, basically, a rape with surgical instruments.  After going through something like this, what incentive would a woman have to do it again?  It’s not like women get paid to put themselves through this.  The emotional trauma resulting from such a procedure, both for their own violation and for the loss of a human life, leaves life-long scars.  What is the use of putting women in jail for years after they’ve gone through an abortion?  As in the case of drug consumption, the supposed criminal is also the victim, because the crime itself is the punishment.  Putting women in jail for aborting is useless overkill.

Practical Argument for Legal Abortion #2: Women are People, Too

When abortion isn’t legal it happens anyway, just as prostitution, murder, drug use, fraud, kidnapping, and all other crimes.  The difference is that illegal abortions (known colloquially as back-alley abortions) are not only lethal for the fetus, but also for the mother.  Using the stats in Mexico to make a rough argument we can then extrapolate to America, we have: 100,000 illegal abortions per year in Mexico, resulting in 1500 women dead from complications such as hemorrhage and infection.  For the sake of argument and calculations, we can simplify the ratio conservatively to roughly 1 woman dead for every 100 illegal abortions.  In Mexico City, the only place in where abortion is legal in Mexico, there have been 58,000 abortions since legalization in 2007.  This means 580 women who would have died from complications in a back-alley abortion got to live.  Considering that those abortions would have happened anyway if abortion were illegal, a net 580 human lives were saved.  If you can count, you can see why legalization is a preferable scenario. If you could choose between 58,000 dead versus 58,580 dead, wouldn’t you take the lower number?  The short version is this: if abortion is legal, a human life is lost (remember the disclaimer I make about this statement in the intro); if abortion is illegal, those same lives are lost, plus an additional one for every hundred.

Americans, especially women, should value the right that they have to abortion.  In Mexico, women are still jailed even for accidental abortions.  There have been cases of 10 year old girls forced to give birth after being impregnated by rape, and anti-woman legislation is still alive and well all over the territory (the penalty for cattle theft is 9 to 25 years in prison in some states, compared to 3 to 6 years for a man who kills his wife).  America should cherish the progress it has made in women’s rights and the separation of church and state.  It is still, weather we Mexicans like it or not, our closest neighbor, ally, and example.