Those Inside And Outside The Womb

Abortion is not the supreme moral issue liberals and conservatives idiotically assume it is, yet the ramifications of human rights for the unborn and people outside the womb are a great example of where both parties wallow in hypocrisy.  Supposedly, they all want to be in alignment with reason and justice, grasping the truth and living not according to their own personal preferences or cultural norms, but according to the way reality is.  Even a single major hypocrisy or assumption would necessitate that neither is rational or just.  From epistemology to economics to criminal justice, they make either inverse errors or the same errors they (sometimes rightly) accuse the other side of.  One of the most significant ways that they do this is by selectively affirming and supporting the humanity and moral rights of different groups of people.

With liberalism emphasizing updates to the status quo even when none are morally necessary, it is of course the case that liberals who are consistent with this philosophical tenet would be in favor of moving away from the historical American norm of condemning abortion.  Conservatives, taking the opposite error, oppose abortion primarily because it is a tradition, especially among American Christians.  This is a popular conventional stance that in its basic form happens to actually overlap with Biblical ethics; it is just that the main reason why conservatives believe or do almost anything is not because of logical proof or metaphysical necessity or anything but conscience and consensus as they relate to tradition.  They are right that their political adversaries think little of the unborn unless they are emotionalistically compelled to do so--but they do the same, just with people who have already been born.

Liberals often disregard the unborn for the convenience or preference of those outside the womb--and celebrate that they do so.  Theirs is the untrue notion that opposing abortion could only be about warring against women's bodily autonomy (as if violating the bodily autonomy of the unborn is not hypocritical here) or the false idea that an unborn child is subhuman, or at least subhuman enough to not be concerned about when they are killed for convenience.  Conservatives do not treat abortion casually as most liberals (for it is possible to be a pro-life liberal) would have people do, but they do pretend like no moral issue matters as much or more than abortion, and they do usually disregard the misery most people face after they have been born--and celebrate that they do so.  Fiercely clamoring for the survival of the unborn, they almost always lose interest in changing irrationalistic, unjust social norms or devastating economic conditions that make life hell for humanity as a whole, including for those who wish to raise children.

Each group tends to think they are the champions of the true human rights, having the consistency, depth, and devotion to justice that the other lacks.  Tragically, each group has made it clear that it is really just interested in affirming the humanity of select categories of humans while directly or indirectly discriminating against or unjustly hurting the rest.  Collective liberals and conservatives are eager to sacrifice, ignore, or condemn people inside or outside of the womb respectively in order to feel as if they have done enough by focusing on one group of people at the expense of others.  This selective support for other humans is not even exclusively manifested in their philosophy and treatment of the unborn.  

How liberals and conservatives--the culturally visible and dominant ones, at least--respectively treat men and women and white people and black people (or people of other skin colors) reflects this same inverted dehumanization, where each political party generally gravitates towards harming people in specific categories, as they all loudly proclaim that they are only trying to be just.  Abortion has simply become an especially volatile subject for them.  "I am just trying to help women," a liberal might think, pretending like killing a human being in an early stage of development is legitimized by convenience (unless the mother's life is endangered, this is sheer emotionalism).  "I am just trying to help the unborn, who cannot help themselves," a conservative might think, totally ignoring the Biblically heinous treatment they endorse if only someone is outside the womb and neglecting other, larger moral issues than any kind of mere murder.  There might be flashes of rationality and philosophical accuracy within the worldviews of such imbeciles, but assumptions, hypocrisy, and intentional ignorance about logical/moral consistency are errors shared by both major political factions.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.