(no subject)

[alonewiththemoon]

I voted this morning before work. That's not too early in the morning to pick a president, but it was a little too early in the morning to think about legalizing baby abandonment.

I voted against directing my representative to vote in favor of a baby safe haven law for a couple of reasons. One is that, like the abortion debate, such an idea completely misses the point that if we put more effort into educating teens about how to not get pregnant (birth control and abstinence equally), it's likely that fewer of them would get pregnant. So I don't want to vote in favor of stop-gap issues, especially when I have serious doubts that the target audience for such a law would use the safe havens anyway. I think that people who might have kept their babies will be more likely to give them up as a result of this law. The other big reason is that a baby safe haven law would completely ignore the father's rights to his child, and I don't think that's right. On the same ballot, we had a question about whether in cases of divorce, each parent should be granted as equal access as possible to children, barring circumstances that make a parent unfit. It seems a little crazy to me that our state could declare that both parents have a right to their children's time in case of divorce, but that a father has no right to his child if the mother doesn't want it.

It's still hard to shake the feeling that I voted to put babies in the trash, though.

Comments

[developer.livejournal.com]

I had a lot of conflict over that question as well -- the point of the father is one that I somehow failed to even consider.

Don't worry...

[kambriel.livejournal.com]

These questions weren't binding. I think they just want to get a feel for what people are thinking. That said, I felt bad that I was caught off-gaurd by some of these questions, and I had to re-read them a couple of times to avoid being led by any mis-leading language (yes, I'm a cynic when it comes to these things). In the future, I'll do more research in advance to know what all of the questions will be, so there won't be any confusion at the poll itself.

Is anyone going to the rally in Copley tonight?

Re: Don't worry...

[alonewiththemoon]

I know what you mean about having to read the questions ever so carefully--the divorce one especially I had to read through a few times to make sure I understood what yes and no meant. For some reason though Arlington has been very involved in the baby safe haven issue, so there have been a lot of articles about it in our local paper.

I will be bellydancing tonight, and then going home to either celebrate with or be consoled by Jon Stewart ;-)