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Last Update: 05 Mar 00
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ABORTION I support what is generally referred to as "a woman's right to choose". In plain English, this means that I feel the decision of whether or not to abort a fetus belongs primarily to the woman who is carrying it. In a perfect world, abortion would never be used as "after-the-fact" birth control. In a perfect world, no woman would ever get pregnant against her will. In a perfect world, no child would ever be born who was not wanted or who could not be adequately supported. In a perfect world, there would be no such thing as gruesome birth defects. Unfortunately, however, we do not live in a perfect world, nor, are we likely to do so any time in the foreseeable future. Therefore, I feel that abortion must remain an option. The Bible-thumpers will rant and rave about "murdering babies" - despite all medical evidence to the contrary. I feel that this argument smacks of little more than attempting to force-feed their own morality to those who don't wish to partake of it. Combine this with the staggeringly incompetent view that it doesn't matter even if the woman became pregnant as a result of rape or incest, and the religious argument(s) against abortion aren't worth the effort that it takes to shout them out. The strongest argument against abortion concerns the question "When does life begin?". Since our legal system has many laws prohibiting the taking of human life, if it can be conclusively demonstrated that "human life" also applies to an unborn fetus, then those laws would also apply. However, our legal system never has granted the other rights and privileges of "human life" to the unborn. For example, they are not counted among the country's population until after birth. Expectant parents cannot take tax credits for unborn children. Death certificates are not filed for stillborn fetuses, and so on. To make the moralistic "life begins at conception" argument a legal fact would bring about all make and manner of ugly ramifications that would have no justification either in medical fact or in societal custom. Without the supporting medical evidence, it becomes very difficult to force the moralistic argument against abortion onto those who are non-Christian and, therefore, do not believe in what the Bible might have to say. That would be just as foolhardy an effort as it would be to force a non-Muslim or a non-Hindu to act in a certain way just because the holy books of those religions says to act that way. Until such time as medical evidence proves otherwise, I think it's clear that the unborn can not be regarded as being "human" - at least in the eyes of the law. Therefore, abortion should not be outlawed and must remain an option. Not a pleasant option, for sure, but an option nonetheless.
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