> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # What’s the point? - URL: https://www.smdp.com/whats-the-point-20060314/ - Published: 2006-03-14T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T23:39:47.000Z - Author: David Pisarra - Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import *Land of Black Hills ushers in dark days* The Black Hills of South Dakota are home to Mount Rushmore. A monument of four presidents: Washington, Jeffer-son, Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln. Looking at the four busts, it is easy to see that they symbolize the fight for a society free of religious rule, a republic that keeps the state separate from the church, the idea of women’s rights, and of equality for all free from slavery. Those four presidents stood for ideals that are, not so slowly, being destroyed. Last week, the governor of South Dakota signed into law a bill banning abortion in all cases, except when the life of the mother is in danger. This includes the ugly crimes of rape and incest. Incest, by the way, is most often just a polite term for family rape, frequently by the father, but also by a brother or cousin. If the number of people I know who are victims of incest is any indication of how extensive this problem is for both men and women the world is a very sick place. The South Dakota law will clearly be challenged, and in fact that is the point of it. The governor, and the legislators, made this law specifically to bring about the review of Roe v. Wade, the landmark law that allows a woman a right to choose. They have even set up a special fund into which private donations are being poured into to pay for the anticipated Supreme Court battle. The thinking behind this bill is intriguing to me. In denying a raped or incest victim the right to a legal and safe abortion, the logic is that while both rape and incest are horrid crimes, why blame the child by killing it? Logically, I can follow that, and frankly there is a fair bit of solid reasoning behind it, assuming that you believe that life begins at conception. What I don’t understand is why these free thinkers always stop short. They never seem to follow their thinking through to its logical conclusion. Assuming that the best interests of the child are the point, which by the way is how the California judicial system operates, and continuing on the path set out by the anti-abortion contingent, the next logical step is providing for the child’s life. This law, like all the other anti-abortion laws, fails to address the issue of who is going to take care of this new life. The politicians love to cloak themselves in the lofty language of “protecting our most vulnerable citizens,” which is a crock of political blather because zygotes and fetuses are not eligible to vote, therefore they are not citizens. They are no more citizens than my dog. It is axiomatic that to be a full-fledged citizen one must have the right to vote. That is why we have a Constitutional Amendment that directly addresses the issue of voting. Taking care of a child is a responsibility that will tax not only the pocketbook, but also the emotional, spiritual and physical resources of an individual in ways that I cannot even conceive. Aside from the obvious nine months of having a parasite living in you, the raising of a child is a societal responsibility. We hold parents accountable for the actions of their children. They become liabilities not just from their costs, but from their mere existence. They take time and effort, and they are a source of anxiety and concern. In forcing a woman to have a child, the state is saying that we are then going to force you to make another horrific choice. Keep the child and raise it, having it as a daily reminder of the rape, plus you get the joy of having to pay for it, bathe it, clothe it, educate it and lose sleep wondering where it is as a teenager. All the while, the “father” is most likely useless, not paying child support, and has either abandoned the child or been incarcerated for statutory rape. The other option is to give the child up for adoption. This canard of an option is always spouted as the ‘humanitarian’ choice for the life of the child. The fact is that of the over half a million children, per the Department of Health and Human Services, who are in the foster care system, most will not be adopted, but will be institutionalized, and warehoused in a variety of foster care settings and eventually released into a world without social skills, emotional and financial resources and a long history of being abused emotionally, if not physically. The mother then gets to live with the knowledge that she has abandoned her child to the cold and unfeeling arms of the government. How is that not punishing the child? No, this poppycock argument that abortion should be made illegal to protect the rights of the child should be exposed for the gibberish it really is. If we want to protect the rights of the child, then we should withdraw societal support for the child, and make the parents raise their kid. We should make it illegal to turn over a child to an adoption agency that is a state funded orphanage, when either of the parents is still living. We should make those parents take work and provide for their child. We can do this easily enough by simply repealing the 13th amendment. It’s a silly amendment anyways, this outlawing of slavery business. After all, the Bible is in favor of slavery, and it would be good for Wal- Mart to have a stable of people whom they own. The obvious savings on that pesky minimum wage law would boost profits and then the Waltons could stop their slide down the Forbes 100 Richest. We’re really not that far from it anyways. Men are already forced to pay child support that they can’t afford, or face losing their drivers licenses, passport, and their jobs. Lawyers who are in arrears on their child support can be suspended from the practice of law. Doctors who owe back child support, regularly have their Medicare and Medi-Cal licenses suspened. Which I don’t understand at all. It seems to me to be little more than a debtors prison without the jail cell. How can we expect people to pay bills if we don’t let them work? But that type of short-sighted, illogical, slapdash, cursory thinking is what typifies the entire abortion debate. (David Pisarra is a business development lawyer in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He or (310)664-9969.) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 14, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/031406.pdf?ref=smdp.com)