The A_O_TION puzzle

Here's a puzzle. Name an English word that fits the following pattern:

A _ O _ T I O N

What's your answer? There are only two English words that fit that pattern: ABORTION and ADOPTION. In a recent post, I wrote about the silliness of not allowing adults to drink and the importance of remembering what your candidate stands for, even when your candidate isn't the nominee.

I'm not going to discuss any of the "pro-choice" or "pro-life" arguments here. The fact is that reasonable people disagree. Nothing that I say is going to convince anybody of anything.

The argument here is pretty much the same as in my last post -- just like the folks at MADD, it seems that most of the people who are opposed to abortion (and certainly the leaders of the anti-abortion movement) seem to have forgotten what they want to accomplish. Here it is: they want abortions not to happen. They're not going to get that to happen by convincing other people that their beliefs are superior. They're not going to get that to happen by convincing people that "god" is only on their side. And they're certainly not going to get that to happen by getting abortion made illegal. They've been trying to do all those things without success. The fact is that reasonable people disagree.

If just a fraction of the effort spent on the anti-abortion movement were spent on better sex education, promoting birth control, and promoting adoption, think of the differences that could be made. Think of how many unwanted pregnancies could be prevented from happening in the first place. Think of how many abortions might be eliminated. Instead, the anti-abortion people are frequently against sex education and birth control, and they are silent on adoption. Case in point: Alaska Governor and current Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is publicly anti-choice and thinks that abstinence-only sex education is the only way to go, and we all know how well that works.

It shouldn't be such a difficult puzzle now, should it?