Over the last several months or so I’ve watched numerous anti-abortion advocates discussing unplanned pregnancies, abortion, birth control, and sex education on a variety of television news magazines.
It doesn’t seem to me that the issue is abortion at all. If anti-abortion activists were truly interested in reducing the number of abortions, they’d be strong advocates for sex education and easy access to contraception.
But these people, most of whom are evangelical christians, want to criminalize not only abortion, but sex education and contraception for sexually active minors.
The end result of this, of course, will be more unwanted pregnancies, back-alley abortions, neglected children, suffering, and crime.
It’s the sex. Sex bothers these people, and if they had their way, they’d outlaw any sexual activity that didn’t lead to procreation. I think the sex-without-procreation thing is also at the root of the virulent and ugly campaign against homosexuals by the religious right.
iPod Update
If you’re using an iPod with gtkpod on a Linux machine, don’t plug it back into a machine (Mac or PC) with the iTunes software on it. I did this on Sunday, and the damn iTunes software deleted the iTunes database from my ‘pod, making everything I’d tranferred onto it invisible.
Not a big deal really, I just put it all back on. But if I’d had a lot of customized playlists, etc. set up, I would have been pissed.
When I reloaded the iPod this time, I put on a more astringent mix of music, with quite a bit of European free improv, some Japanese noise and a bit of obscure post-punk — Orange Juice, Chrome, and Josef K.
Playing right now: “Two Horn’d Reasoning: Cloven Fiction”, Evan Parker & Paul Lytton
Playing a couple of minutes ago: “Not Great Men”, Gang of Four; “Lost Someone”, James Brown
On vinyl yesterday: “Burning From The Inside”, Bauhaus; The Bears, self-titled.
On vinyl today: “Rubber Soul” by the Beatles.
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