Livingston County is known for its conservatism.
Democrats who run for township clerk are called baby-killers because they support a woman's right to choose whether to continue or end a difficult pregnancy, regardless of the fact that township clerks have nothing to do with the abortion issue.
Conservative groups tried to use the same baby-killing rhetoric against Proposal 2, the measure allowing embryonic stem cell research to go forward in Michigan. Churches used all sorts of scare tactics to try to link the search for cures for debilitating illnesses to killing babies.
It didn't work across Michigan and it didn't work in Livingston County. Proposal 2 carried even in Livingston County.
Why? Perhaps it has to do with suffering. Lots of people find it easy to condemn a woman who feels she has no choice but to end a pregnancy. They can't put themselves in her place or understand that a late-term abortion may be absolutely necessary to save her life. Even John McCain ridiculed the notion that a woman's "health" might be impaired by a pregnancy.
But it's much easier to put yourself in the place of someone with diabetes or Parkinson's disease. A man who will condemn a woman for getting an abortion never has to worry about getting pregnant. But he might get Parkinson's disease. And he sure doesn't want to suffer from it. All of a sudden, the fate of those microscopic cells seems unimportant next to his own potential suffering.
Same thing with Proposal 1, medical marijuana. Not everybody can get pregnant but anybody can get cancer. Everybody knows someone who has had cancer and seen them suffer the ravages of chemotherapy. Much easier to put yourself into the shoes of a cancer sufferer than a woman who was raped and gotten pregnant. That's unimaginable. But cancer is another thing entirely. It strikes too close to home.
Let's face it. Suffering is a hard sell in the 21st century.
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