Moral Equivalency At It's Worst 

VodkaPundit rates this USA Today article as required reading. Now normally my liquored friend and I see eyeball to eyeball on these things, so I of course read it. It started out great:

The Washington establishment would shrink from any such claim, but the Global War on Terror is a fight over the social, economic and cultural roles of women. The core issues for the terrorists are the interpretation of God's will and the continued oppression of women. Nothing so threatens Islamic extremists as the freedom Western women enjoy.
...
The true symbols of the War on Terror are the Islamic veil and the two-piece woman's business suit.
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Islamist terrorists have formed the last, great boy's club, meeting in caves and warning girls to stay out - or, in the case of the 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, demanding that women be kept from his grave to avoid polluting it. Their vision offers women fewer rights by far than those enjoyed by the wives of the prophet Mohammed. They are women-hating sadists for whom faith is an excuse. Their fears are primal.

Alright... looking good. So far I can't agree more with what he has to say. Sadly we're only half way through at this point... and the other half is where the wretched moral equivalency rears its ugly head:

Without questioning the integrity of those who believe that life begins at conception, the struggle to overturn Roe v. Wade can also be viewed as an attempt to turn back the clock on women's freedom. Opposing such a reversal isn't a matter of thinking abortion admirable, but of accepting the magnificent revolutionary principle that no man has a right to tell any woman what she can or cannot do with her body.

Attempts to interfere with another citizen's liberty are worthy of Osama bin Laden, not of Americans.

Likewise, the ideologically driven reluctance of the Food and Drug Administration to approve the "morning-after pill" for general use is a vestige of patriarchal tyranny that would please Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq. Longing to restore the tyrannical pattern that governed social relations down the ages, our extremists demand that women's options be restricted, that their bodies be treated as chattels of the state.

Read that again. He says "Without questioning the integrity of those who believe that life begins at conception"... and then goes on to say that anyone who tries to pass laws on abortion are equal to Osama bin Laden. If you dare second guess the morning-after pill, suddenly you're no better then al-Zarqawi. But remember, he's not questioning your integrity at all.

Then, after not questioning the integrity of abortion terrorists, he goes on to talk about female genital mutilation in Africa:

Nor should we be surprised that women stand among those who would deny rights to other women. Their counterparts are the African crones who demand that young girls undergo genital mutilation just as they did, or the women of the Middle East who insist that wearing a chador protects them. They are the champions of the small morality of rules over the greater morality of freedom.

While not saying so directly, the positioning and phrasing of this particular paragraph is outrageous, because he attempts to draw a link between women who oppose abortion (denying other women their right), and women in Africa who encourage female genital mutilation. This is absolutely disgusting.

I've talked about my beliefs in abortion before. In general I'm against it, as I believe that an unborn child is a life, and has it's own inherit rights, like the right to life, as all human beings do. My only moral dilemma is where in the cycle of pregnancy that life begins. Short of knowing for sure, I normally try to stay on the safe side and say conception.

To suggest that this belief, framed in this manner, is the same as a terrorist, or a butcher of women's bodies is downright insulting. I welcome debate on abortion from those like Stephen Green who are pro-choice. Calling me a terrorist is not debating anything, it simply shows your ignorance.