The Abortion Issue
I’m often accused of being a Republican, since I’m supporting McCain for president. Maybe this will finally convince you guys that I’m not the ultra conservative Republican I was in my younger days… I more closely identify myself as a Libertarian, although they have views I disagree with too… But I digress…
This morning, my friend Salena, posted on her blog about abortion and asked for a response. Instead of posting a long drawn out comment, I decided to post my response here.
It is often that a pro-lifer brings up the “rape” or “12-year-old girl” scenario. Mostly because they often use it as a pro-choicer’s argument. Sure, these are very bad things, but they are not the fundamental issue of abortion.
But, let’s start with one of these scenarios. Imagine that you are a woman (if you aren’t already). You have a happy life and all is great in the world. One evening, after a night out with the girls, you are attacked on the way back to your car and you are raped and beaten brutally. Six weeks later and you find out that you’re pregnant with the attackers baby. What would you do? What would you want to do?
Shouldn’t it be your right to decide what to do? After all, it is your body and it affects your life – your career, your friendships, your relationships, even family relationships. If you decide that you want to keep it and put it up for adoption, that is your right. If you decide to keep it and raise it, that is also your right. But shouldn’t you be allowed the opportunity to not have it in the first place?
What if your rape was so traumatic that every time that something reminds you of it you break down in tears? Would you want to go through 9 months of that with your pregnancy?
Of course, not every abortion is about rape. Some abortions are at the simple choice of the mother. And you know what? I’m okay with that. That’s her choice. If you think she’s going to burn in hell for it, so be it. Maybe her religion doesn’t work that way.
Sure, by the very fact that abortion is legal, people use it as a form of birth control. It’s a little sick and twisted, but I think it’s a minority of people who are using it as birth control in the sense that most people think of condoms and the pill as birth control.
Another argument I hear pretty often is that the mother doesn’t have the right to choose who dies. Interestingly enough, the same people who make this argument support the Death Penalty too. Why should you get the right to decide who lives and dies and we don’t? You can’t have it both ways. Either make the death penalty and abortion illegal or keep them both legal. Personally, I prefer keeping them both legal. It makes for less government that way.
What I find particularly funny about this particular issue is that the Right constantly accuses the Left of creating bigger, most costly government. Yet, when the abortion issue is brought up, the Right often says that “counseling and enforcement” is the way to stop abortions.
Where exactly do you think the “counseling and enforcement” is gonna come from? That’s right, my tax dollars. The Christian conservatives are preaching BIGGER GOVERNMENT and more WASTEFUL spending.
Amazing how the Republicans and Democrats all start to sound alike, doesn’t it?
The best thing to do is leave Roe vs. Wade alone. Let the people decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong. Just because it’s not right for you, it doesn’t mean that it’s not right for me.
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August 30th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
As a woman, I would prefer to make my own decisions about my future. I have two beautiful children that I had under “nontraditional” circumstances. And I did debate abortion within myself. Would I ever have one? The answer for me was no but that doesn’t mean that I believe that abortion should be illegal. Doesn’t matter if it were due to rape, partying, birth control malfunction, etc. It should be the woman’s choice not some stiff forcing his morality through laws. Yes, I saw young girls using abortion as a form of birth control and that was horrible. But no law would change that only raise the chances of miserable childhoods from unhappy parenting, abandonment or unsafe medical procedures resulting in horrific deaths.
Big sigh. I am very passionate about the abortion issue. I don’t see a candidate that feels the way I do. I hope that Roe v. Wade isn’t doomed.
August 31st, 2008 at 9:38 pm
First of all, thank you for your extensive reponse. As you pointed out, the fundamental issue of abortion isn’t the issue of rape, or the age of the person having the abortion, however I do believe that a lot of pro-choicers use those scenarios as a crutch to justify their stance. I believe there are different reasons and convictions for everyone that cause them to chose either side of this debate.
Commenting specifically on the issue of rape and what I personally would do… that I can’t answer completely because I’ve never found myself in a rape situation. I know I would be outraged, hurt, embarrassed, and would want severe punishment for the person who had done this to me. I’m sure those feelings are universal and are perhaps only a few of the emotions one feels. As for a child that may result of this unwanted experience, I’m not sure how I would feel. I don’t know that I could abort it. That comes specifically from my beliefs that all things happen for a reason, God won’t give you anything you can’t handle, and that in the midst of a tragedy God can and show up and make something beautiful out of it. Again, I realize that my views don’t align with those of everyone else. I accept that. Furthermore, I don’t think that people who have abortions are going to automatically burn in hell. They can be saved by accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, as can any other human being. But that’s another discussion altogether.
With all of that being said, I could even support the right to have an abortion in those very rare cases of rape and/or for health reasons that may place the mother in danger. But only in those circumstances and only very early in the pregnancy. I still have not found a circumstance in which I would ever support a partial birth abortion.
I do not believe that the government should have the right to tell anyone what they can and can not do to their body, unless it affects another person. You can beat your head in with a ball bat, have a boob job, drink alcohol, have a penis enlargement, sex change, smoke pot and fry all your brain cells {in the privacy of your own home}, jump off a cliff, whatever… and I don’t think any government official should be able to stop you from doing so. None of those things directly and physically harm anyone else. But when you hit someone else with that ball bat, or smoke in the presence of someone else, or drink and drive, those things affect other people and should be stopped. As with abortion, there is another human involved in that situation… a defenseless, and still innocent, unborn baby. Who will protect that baby? That’s where I think someone should intervene.
I also support the death penalty in those cases where an individual has been proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt of certain heinous crimes. An unborn child isn’t yet guilty of anything and doesn’t deserve to be killed. A person who has willing murdered another human or performed a heinous act on a child will now be nothing more than a drain on society sitting in a jail cell for the rest of their life. The rest of us shouldn’t have to pay to keep them up and hope they don’t harm someone else while they are still alive. In other words, they deserve to die as a product of their own decisions and actions. They put themselves in that situation whereas an unborn child hasn’t.
So what it all boils down to, I’m not a pro-lifer simply because abortion is against my religious beliefs, or because I think that the government should control what we do to our own bodies, or because I believe that no one has the right to chose who lives or dies. I am against abortion because someone should stand up protect the life and rights of that innocent unborn baby.
As I previously said, one of the beautiful things about being an American is our right to have our own opinions and express them. I respect your opinions and can see where you are coming from, however we’ll have to respectfully agree to disagree.