Aside from abortion, I mostly agree with you. I’ve never had an abortion; both my children were from failures of birth control, but I welcomed them and I love them dearly. Abortion wasn’t right for ME: that doesn’t give me the right to make it illegal/difficult for others.
Personally, I think only women should legislate women’s issues, especially abortion. Only a woman can understand being pregnant.
Also, making abortion illegal won’t stop it happening. I truly don’t believe it’s used as ‘birth control’, because it IS expensive and increasingly difficult to obtain. The myth that a woman can get one on demand, every month if she wants, is damaging to the rights of women.

@CarolinaGirl60 I work as a paramedic and (unfortunately) have seen the results of too many badly done abortions to believe that abortion-on-demand is a good option... I understand the necessity of keeping it both legal and available, but would strongly discourage it in most cases. A colleague of mine collapsed at work following a botched D&C to terminate her pregnancy -- she nearly exsanguinated due to a perforated uterus. Despite the EMTLA, her first choice hospital refused to treat her because the injury resulted from an abortion. Ultimately, she had an emergency hysterectomy. I'm not trying to outlaw medically necessary abortions, therapeutic abortions, or even those resulting from rape and incest... I just want the practice <deprecated> as a form of birth control; and yes, I have a beautiful daughter who overcame both "the pill" and condoms to come into this world, so the (in)effectiveness of birth control is well understood!

@mhmccabe That’s horrible, if your colleague had that result from a legal abortion. Tragic. I’ve only seen results like that once, but the abortion was self-induced. She also perforated her uterus and required hysterectomy. I only worked ER for a year though, so I’m sure what I saw was only a tiny fraction of what’s out there.

I think it is wrong to exclude rape and medical problems from abortion . Accidents happen and if a family cannot support or if medical problems exist they should have the ability to abort. Religion has no place in politics and that is why we have a Constitution that separates church and state. This is not being followed by the republicans. Oh yes the evangelicals also oppose contraception of any kind and support large families. It is ashame that the republicans aftyer protecting birth then forget about those briught into the world. They cut food to children,housing and medical. They are great supporters wouldn't you say.

You cannot have it all ways .It takes money to be liberal and progressive and libertarians for the most part are anarchists and the conservatives would have us remain in the past eliminate taxes and accumuate money that they will never spend.

@Marine Perhaps, but I don't agree with the spending priorities established by either party. War, in particular, is frightfully expensive. have we spent so much trying to bomb the Middle East (Current conflicts) and Southeast Asia (Vietnam Era) back into the stone age when it's very clear they've never left the stone age... Likewise, I'm happy to feed, clothe, and house the poor but I'm not a big fan of farm subsidies, corporate welfare, and tax breaks for the fucking oil companies that earn astronomical profits by raping the consumer... That's how I define fiscal conservatism. Social liberalism means that I don't care who you are, how you have , or who you choose to marry. You can be a trisexual walleyed pigmy and I don't give a damn. The libertarian streak means I don't care if you wear a helmet while riding your motor cycle, seat belts are optional, and if you choose to smoke banana peels that's between you and your pulmonologist. I don't believe in the "Nanny State."

@mhmccabe We are getting very close to agreeing on everything especially the war. The latter has driven us into debt because they refused to establish wartime funding like bonds etc.As a liberal I don't care if you are dumb enough to not wear a helmet or seat belts and the weed should be made legal and empty our jails and prisons. Discussion and compromise are just great.