I think there was a time and a place when there was.
OK, I apologise. That example was rather too hysterical. Consider something some people do believe. Killing female children in china? Segregation? Stoning adulterers?
It’s not that I don’t get your point, Shade - I do. But the thing is, you’re presenting examples to which almost every (sane) citizen of the US (let’s stick with that country for now) would say that they’re criminal and wrong (killing female children, female circumcision). Abortion isn’t such an example: it’s pretty much 50/50 with regards to people deeming it murder or no.
It’s the nearest analogy I can come up with - I can’t think of any other issue of morality split like that, or at least, one which I’m on the other side of. Can you suggest anything better?
Perhaps I should forget the anaology. “My natural reaction is to be to be horrified. But then I realised that expecting someone to ignore murders is quite shocking too. He fact that they’re not murders to me doesn’t negate the fact that they’re murders to someone else in this point, except insofar as I might be able to persduade them to accept my point of view.”
Never mind, it’s a point that can be made about a lot of things, maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up here.
Is that what Jesus would say?
It isn’t about funding abortions, it’s about refusing to fund clinics who even advocate for abortion. It’s about squelching free speech. It’s about Bush deciding unilaterally that he has the right to impose his own personal and hypocritical morality on other countries. It’s about letting children suffer without health care because the clinic they go to won’t agree to a fascistic muzzling of free expression.
I don’t particularly like my money being spent to slaughter people in Iraq for no reason but conservatives don’t seem to have a problem with that.
Well, at least this is a step in the right direction. Our government should never have started spending taxpayer money on this kind of crap to begin with.
Now, if we can just get them to stop invading other countries.
Would anybody have a problem if the U.S. decided to not send money to a health clinic that also performed significant numbers of clitoral circumcisions?
If politicians wished to not have money go to such a clinic…would they be “imposing” their own morality?
Clitoral circumcision is not analogous to abortion but Bush is cutting off funds to clinics that don’t perform abortion.
Well of course that’s not my point.
I wasn’t comparing abortions and clitoral circumcisions.
My question was whether witholding U.S. funds for a clinic that performed clitoral circumcision (among other “acceptable” medical services) was an imposition of values?
If said circumcisions were performed on adults who freely gave informed consent, as abortions generally are, then I would indeed have a problem with it. Unfortunately, I seem to recall reading that these circumcisions are often performed on unwilling children who are held down shrieking while it happens. That, to my mind, constitutes torture, and I have no problem with denying aid to torturers.
So in some cases, I guess it <b>is</b> okay to impose our viewpoint on other countries by witholding aid.
Which, of course, was my point. 
My only point here is to rebut the notion that we shouldn’t be “imposing” our value system on others.
“We” do it all the time.
Yes. It’s an imposition of values…and it would be inappropriate.
DtC…meet CrazyCatLady.
Ah, but we’re not talking about “our” value system, we’re talking about GWB’s* value system. Our values as a country are that abortion should be legal, safe and available. Bush is imposing a morality that is counter to that of his own country.
Me neither. It’s amazing to me that the people who aren’t bothered by this are probably the same ones rallying behind Bush’s 87 million dollar fiasco. It’s ok to go in where we aren’t wanted and fuck things up, but it’s not ok to spend money where we’re genuinely needed.:rolleyes:
[nitpick]
87 billion. With a ‘b’.
[/nitpick]
I’m not really sure if a factor of a thousand counts as a nitpick anymore, really.
I got me an analogy for you.
Bush is pro death penalty, right?
How about he stopped funding aid progammes to countries which were anti-death penalty, unless they started executing criminals. Even though not all states in the US have the death penalty, and only 50% of his citizens believe in it.
How would that sit?
As long as the clinics are acting within the law of both the USA and their home country, I don’t see how they can withdraw funding.
It’s ok for any American woman to receive counselling about her options, but not for any African woman?
Realistically, you’re probably talking about a woman who is HIV positive or with AIDs, who already has 4 or 5 children, some of whom might also have HIV or AIDs, some of whom might have died of starvation, common childhood diseases, malaria or diarrhoea. And that would be because the immunisation programmes aren’t fully developed, there is not enough money for food, anti malarials or retrovirals and there may not be access to clean water.
So there’s no abortion, but without healthcare provided by those clinics, how long do you think the child will stay healthy? Or alive?
A lot of those problems could be solved if we cancelled third world debts. We give them only a fraction of what they give us.
Another American displaying ignorance about American levels of aid, or about the contributions of other countries, or both. As jjimm has already pointed out, US spending in this category is well below the average for developed nation, in proportion to the size of the economy.
Foreign Policy magazine recently released a study, conducted in conjunction with the Center for Global Development, that ranked 21 wealthy nations on a “Commitment to Development Index”. This CDI rated the countries on
Despite its constant claims to responsible world citizenship and its professed concern for the welfare of poorer nations, the United States finished in second-last place, with only Japan scoring lower. The report’s summary about the US says:
While the US does contribute a lot of aid money, in absolute terms, it is well below most other wealthy countries in terms of aid as a percentage of GDP. Not only that, but a very high percentage of US aid is “tied” aid. For those not familiar with the term, i offer the report’s explanation. Tied aid is:
So, much of this so-called aid is actually a method of distributing US taxpayer dollars to large US corporations, rather than to poor people in the third world. This is not especially surprising–it’s exactly how the military-industrial system works inside the US as well–but let’s call this “aid” what it is: a subsidy to US corporations. In contrast, among the leaders on the CDI aid list, only a small percentage of the aid is tied.
The report does note another way that the US provides aid.
Of course, plenty of other countries also have charities and foundations that provide aid. And, even if no other country had any such charity organizations, and if every cent of America’s non-governmental aid was included in its score, the US would still only rank 14th out of 21 on the aid scoresheet. Admittedly, the survey also states:
But even if such things were included, the US would still be at or near the bottom of the aid list.
The only category on the CDI in which the US ranks near the top is in trade, where it is first. Even then,
Each and every cow in the United States, for example, draws an annual subsidy of over $150 to cattle producers, which is about one third of the average annual GDP per capita in sub-Saharan Africa. This is not as bad as Switzerland, where the cows could almost put themselves through college on the $1560 they are subsidised each year.
For people who want to see the whole list of CDI rankings, you can find it here. The countries are in order of ranking from best to worst (smaller number=better rank), and the numbers for each category are scores out of ten (larger number=better score).
As an Australian national, i was particularly chagrined to see how fucking awful my own country’s contribution is. But then, i wasn’t really very surprised.
Doesn’t it seem a tad bit disingenius that in our own country, abortion is freely available, but we’re trying to force other countries to outlaw it? Is “our” value system schizophrenic?
disingenuous