the Conservative Progress: From the old blog: Abortion

The following post originally appeared on my old blog, the Free Voice, on November 16, 2004, 10:13pm.

As I promised earlier, here is my post grappling with the abortion issue.

First to rehash some, so all understand my approach, I see value in both the Clinton and O'Reilly views of the world. The truth is in the black & white, right & wrong, but the two are some thoroughly mixed at times that our world begins to look like varying shades of gray. Even some issues appear "gray" when we examine them, but that is because of their complexity. They have to be broken down into their single components to be understood and fully examined.

Now to look at Abortion in this light. In my previous post I started to break it down:
"When you boil it down, the abortion issue is really two issues: a woman’s right to decide what to do with her own body versus every human’s right to live."

Jeremy from Pop-PR added to this in his comment:
"It’s not just a right to choose or a right to life. Religious beliefs come into play, and that’s where it gets sticky."

From my point of view, religious beliefs are tied into the right to life, as all of the religious arguements I have seen against abortion have centered on the sanctity of life. But Jeremy does bring out a point that I am going to discuss, how this whole thing hinges on moral beliefs.

When we look at the right to live, this immediately breaks down into the agruement of when does life actually begin for us: conception? second trimester? birth? 21 years old? This of course leads to a tailspin as the arguement goes in circles for hours, with most sides bringing relevant and substantial proof to back up their positions. And while we know it is wrong to take a human life, the uncertainty of when it begins makes this a pointless arguement. Until there is a concensus on when life begins, the abortion issue will not be decided by the right to life arguement.

So, we now shift to the woman's right to choose what to do with her own body. Some argue that regardless of when life begins, the woman has the right to choose whether to allow the developing fetus to remain in her body or not. In a way, I agree with this camp, women have every right to choose what to do with their bodies, including whether to have sex. Every single expert in human physiology and mammalian reproduction will tell you the same thing: from the biological standpoint, sex is meant for procreation, or creating new life. This is basic knowledge: sex makes babies! If people don't know this, we need to seriously revamp the American education system.

Placing the woman's right to choose at whether or not they should be able to abort a pregnency is putting the right in the wrong place. Women (and men) have the right to have sex as they please, but you have to accept the potential responsibility that comes with it. In most rural areas, it is completely legal to fire indiscriminately into a forest or what have you, but you have to accept responsibility for anything you might injury or kill (endangered species, hunters, other people, what have you). It's the same principle, you have the right to do what you want, but you have to accept the consequences. By that right, I hold both parties accountable for pregnancy, both man and woman as it is supposed to be a mutual descision.

Now I have handled this in a blanket fashion, but there are some exceptions: situations when the choice was not mutual, pregnancies that threaten the life of the mother, incest, pregnancies where the fetus has no chance of surviving.

Here is the synopsis of my point of view: Life begins when the fertilized egg begins to develope into a viable fetus, specifically when it attaches to the uteran wall. (If you need a biological lesson as to what this means, just ask, but I'm not going to explain it here.) With life begining at such an early stage, pregancy should only be prevented (I say should as it obviously can be dealt with later). That being said, I support Roe v. Wade, because when abortion is made illegal, so many women are hurt or killed in their attempts to have abortions anyway that it no longer becomes feasible to ban abortion in light of the rampant civil disobedience that will ensue. As much as I agree with Erica that stupidity should hurt, it is not worth it in this case. The answer lies in teaching our kids about self-discipline and individual responsibility, that if we make a choice we have to be ready to accept the responsibility of whatever fallout there may be.

-MDC