Keep 'Em Barefoot, Pregnant- And Ignorant


At the Games for Change Festival on Monday in New York City, Al Gore displayed dangerous radicalism, remarking

One of the things we could do about it is to change the technologies, to put out less of this pollution, to stabilize the population, and one of the principal ways of doing that is to empower and educate girls and women. You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children to have, the spacing of the children. You have to lift child-survival rates so that parents feel comfortable having small families. And most important, you have to educate girls and empower women. And that's the most powerful leveraging factor, and when that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices.

It must be dangerous radicalism because Rush Limbaugh remarked

"'You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children to have, the spacing of the children.'" He has acknowledged that he has no interest, no intention of controlling any sexual urges, so women better be prepared to deal with guys like him -- and they better be able to have access to abortion or what have you. There's much more to this. This is descent, folks, into inanity. Algore is doing Paul Ehrlich now: Overpopulation. The key is women. Women must be made to do the right thing, in order to save the planet.

Ignore the ad hominem attack upon Al Gore by a guy who himself appears to have enjoyed a sexual escapade or two. More critically, the guy just makes things up: "they better be able to have access to abortion or what have you." The tipoff that Gore never mentioned abortion would be the "or what have you." Limbaugh then claims Gore urged "women must be able to do the right thing, in order to save the planet."

What part of choice does Rush Limbaugh claim not to understand? The former Vice President mentioned "choose" or "choices" three (3) times and suggested that we "empower and educate girls and women" so that "the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices." A radical idea, that.

Limbaugh calls "overpopulation" a "theorem that has been totally debunked.' As with everything he claims has been disproven, he does not tell us who and how his worldview has been confirmed. In this case, we know it's not the United Nations, which has noted that there were 1 billion people in 1804 and only 2 billion individuals 123 years later, in 1927. But 72 years later, in 1999, the world's population had tripled to 6 billion and is projected to reach 10 billion by 2100. Yes, it took approximately 7,000 years since Adam and Eve reportedly showed up for the world to reach 1 billion people- and fewer than 200 years for it to increase sixfold. No pattern there.

The latest attack on the guy elected President in 2000 might have been prompted by the right's obsessive Gore-hatred or by its obsessive hatred of environmentalists. But it is probably primarily a part of the increasing war on family planning, which has found its latest iteration in the effort in Kansas to legislate abortion out of existence. (Fat chance, that; coat hangers are still inexpensive.) Ultimately, it's not about abortion but about family planning as suggested (video, below) by Texas State Representative Wayne Christian, who spilled the beans:






Conservatives everywhere used to be exorcised about teenage and out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Upon discovering that Bristol Palin, an unwed teenager, was pregnant, conservatives uttered nary a gasp- not only because she was the daughter of a conservative Republican, but because there would be a live birth, unhindered by family planning. When a Democrat recommends that women become educated and empowered so they are able to make choices freely, and the right gets in an uproar, it ought to give the rest of us an inkling that it's not just abortion anymore.

Share|