The kids are watching

It’s amazing the effect an unplanned pregnancy can have on a relationship.

And of course it doesn’t stop with the pregnancy. As a parent myself, I am all too familiar with the sobering chill that a child entering a room can cast on a heated argument between two adults.

So it was with bittersweet amusement that I watched a metaphorical unplanned child—or, if you prefer, fetus—waltz in between our latest national argument between Papa Right and Mama Left.

Since President Obama’s election, we’ve watched the issue of health care reform rise to the top of our list of national priorities. The ensuing “discourse” has been tragicomic in drawing the worst of both sides of the political spectrum into a feverish national shouting match. From the point of view of those advocating sweeping health care reform, it’s pretty much inarguable that there is a real problem with the issues of cost and equality of health care in the country. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to recognize some legitimacy in the opinions of those who don’t fully trust what many Americans are coming to see as a totally broken and dysfunctional government­—a government that’s taking more control over one of the most important and private aspects of an individual’s life. On the one hand, we have Americans who are not totally comfortable with flipping on a legislative switch and subsequently sending the country toward emulating a full-blown European-style social democracy. On the other hand, there are those who argue—credibly—that the tragedy of a single person in the richest country in the world suffering or dying from lack of health care is morally inexcusable and demands drastic action.

Just when it seemed that the old line between the American right and left had been re-drawn by the recent surge in partisan polarization, into the family living room wandered the abortion issue in the form of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to the health care reform bill. This amendment would drastically reduce access to abortion in America by preventing federal dollars from being used—even indirectly—to fund elective abortions.

Ah, that old implacable progeny of the craziness that is the American polity: the abortion issue. Suddenly it seemed to dawn on some Democratic supporters of health care reform, as if for the first time, that when it comes to the government, to turn the old phrase on its head, “With great responsibility comes great power.” Or, as some of my more jingoistic conservative friends might say, “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away.”

This fear also weighs on the minds of pro-life conservatives, who now see the possibility of achieving for all practical purposes, with the Dreaded Health Care Reform, what they have been unable to achieve legislatively in the 36 years since Roe v. Wade. The revulsion at “big government” that seemed to have disappeared from the Republican Party during eight years of George W. Bush’s deficit spending and military adventurism, only to suddenly re-appear in the last ten months, is again losing some of its allure with the prospect of somehow stopping women from having abortions. And pro-choice liberals are starting to see clearly through the dense fog of hope for change the serious implications of further empowering a large, controlling, intrusive government—especially one with the demonstrated level of incompetence and corruption manifested by the entire federal government over the last few decades (or longer).

So what’s the moral? Well, here my attempts at witty observation and pithy summation hit the brick wall of real-world politics. There are no quick answers. I suppose one lesson is that despite the supposed “polarization” that we keep hearing about, American politics remains a somewhat rocky terrain—one that can’t precisely be captured with catchy slogans like “Keep Government Hands Off My Medicare” or “U.S. Out of My Uterus.”

Maybe another lesson could be demonstrated with a question: How many of us have actually bothered to investigate, study closely, or even read the pending health care legislation that might soon change all our lives for better or worse? I know I haven’t. Like too many other Americans, I have been a passive observer anxiously awaiting the government’s decision on an issue that is sure to greatly affect my family and myself. Have we the people been active participants in this debate, or have we instead followed another time-honored American tradition, that of tragically taking for granted the gift of living in a country where we can make (sometimes frustratingly slowly) our individual voices heard?

Our government would be all too happy for more of us to stay out of the discussion. Pesky constituents just meddle and confuse politicians’ business as usual. Our political parties are a mess. We as citizens need to first inform ourselves and then step up and get involved in working toward a realistic solution involving some sort of compromise across ideological lines.

The kids are watching.

The author is a student in the School of General Studies.