The wrong way to argue about abortion

Abortion is one of the most polarized issues in American politics. It's also one of the worst-debated ones. Both sides tend to rely on straw-man arguments that vilify the people on the other side.

• Pro-Life people portray Pro-Choice people as wanting to kill babies. (That is, they hate Life.)
• Pro-Choice people portray Pro-Life people as wanting to control women. (That is, they hate Choice.)

Both of those portrayals are wrong, because in reality the difference between the two groups comes down to the question of when a human life begins. If we could scientifically prove that, the discussion would end.

Here's a version of the issue that's simplified, but not by very much:

Let's say a woman wants to have an operation. Should she be able to?

• If the operation will kill another person, the answer is no.
• If the operation will not affect another person, the answer is yes.

Which of those bullets represents the situation with abortion? Well that's up for debate. In fact, that's the only thing that really needs to be debated to resolve this issue! [Edit: This is not quite true. See comment at the bottom.] But is that what people debate? No, hardly ever. Instead, people talk about how evil the other side is. It feels empowering to be so right! But it's not really empowering at all. It just makes the power swing back and forth based on who's in office (or on the bench) at the moment.

As an example, on the radio this morning I heard a woman explain that abortion rights are a racial issue. He's the gist of what she said:

Black communities (due to a lower average income) have much higher abortion rates. Therefore they have higher needs, and denying access hurts Black people more. 

But when she says that, here's what a Pro-Life person hears: 

Black babies are killed much more often than white babies. Therefore allowing abortion hurts Black people more.

Same data, same concern for racial justice. Opposite conclusion. It's going to be like that every time.

Here's a great idea that will probably never happen: Compromise, so that each side gets the most important things they care about while acknowledging the validity of the other side's concerns.

Like, for example, what if you you amended the Constitution to say something like this?

Abortion is allowed in the first trimester of pregnancy and forbidden in the third. States may decide what to do in-between.

You could tweak the specific week numbers, but you get the point. Pro-Life people would avoid the most heinous abortion scenarios; Pro-Choice people would avoid unwanted pregnancy for the vast majority of women, since presumably most women who get abortions know they want one pretty early. Nobody would be completely happy. But nobody would lose what they have just because political power swung a different direction this year, or this decade.

Could we just... admit that pretty much everybody involved is a good person and just talk?

U.N. Squadron

U.N. Squadron was the first Super Nintendo game I rented back in the day. It caught my eye from the Nintendo Power magazine stuff based largely on the fact that it has an energy meter, unlike most games in the genre, so it seemed more accessible. The various customizations and the Capcom brand were draws too. I wasn't surprised to find that the game has delightful music. The backgrounds are gorgeous, especially if you're used to NES graphics. And it has a bunch of memorable boss battles and stuff. I eventually beat it on Easy mode, although it did require a bunch of tedious side missions to get enough in-game money to buy the best plane after I had already upgraded once or twice.

The game isn't perfect. Since weapons and planes cost money, you sort of have to lose and retry, over and over, in order to build up enough to buy what you need. In fact, the "right" way to play the game is to stick with the default plane (and its minimal special weapons) until you can buy the best plane, the Efreet. Doing this is sad because you have to bypass my favorite aircraft, the A10A Thunderbolt, which has an extra downward-firing cannon (at the cost of a weaker forward-firing one). It's kind of sad that the game simultaneously encourages you to get a variety of aircraft, and demands stinginess.

The "U.N." branding is kind of odd. In Japan the game is branded after some Anime series, but they changed the name for sale in other countries. There is no reference to the United Nations though, or anything else with those initials. It's about a mercenary group. But whatever - the genre is not known for its meaningful plots. 

There's a side-effect to the original branding though: games based on outside brands rarely get re-released on virtual consoles. So U.N. Squadron has never been available digitally on modern systems. So recently I bought the game on eBay and replayed it. It's really nice - it has aged quite well, assuming you can overlook the above-mentioned need to be stingy. After beating it again on Easy, I went for some additional runs: Beat on Normal, Beat on Easy without the Efreet (so I could use the Thunderbolt on almost all the levels, including the last one), Beat on Easy without using any continues (which required me to use my least-favorite character so I could power up my main weapon faster).