Abortion and Personal Responsibility

The abortion issue has been a top priority for the media, especially because they are still doting on the pregnant Bristol Palin. It is making me sick, but not because Bristol is in the limelight now. It sickens me because neither side seems to understand the nuances of the argument itself. The problem is that the political rhetoric has trapped people, but I will now elaborate on the arguments as I see them... which I think is more correct than many, if not all, of the pundits out there.

The argument is over choice, and both sides favor choice (so being "pro-choice" is a bunch of BS). The problem is WHAT choice must be made. The pro-abortion people want to be able to make the choice to terminate a pregnancy that they don't want. The anti-abortion people want people to choose whether or not to conceive in the first place, i.e. whether or not to have the sex which does, almost inevitably, lead to pregnancy. That is the point of abstinence education -- to inculcate personal responsibility into the realm of sexuality, which seems to have been far removed by the pro-abortion crowd.

The media has jumped on the fact that Bristol Palin "made her choice" and decided to have the child, and then transform this "choice" into the choice not to have an abortion. However, that is not the choice that Bristol made, nor is it the choice that her supporters claim she made. She made the choice to have sex in the first place, thus creating the baby for which she must take responsibility.

And that's what the abortion issue is to me. It is a matter of personal responsibility. There are consequences for one's actions, and having a child is one of them. It is not a matter of reproductive freedom, because that freedom is not challenged -- they are neither forced, nor kept from having sex. It was their choice to have sex, and they should have to live with the consequences. And of course by "the consequences," I do not intend to diminish the importance of the life argument (which is closely intertwined). The primary purpose for the argument is this life argument, for which I will now make the case of both sides.

Pro-abortion first: A fetus is not viable outside the womb, and so it is a part of the mother's body until it is actually born, where it becomes "alive." Therefore, the government should not have the right to tell women what they can do with their own bodies. There is, more recently, an invalid addition to this argument, which states that abortion was acceptable as far back in time as the Romans and Greeks (who are often touted, when purposes serve, as wiser than our current generation -- which I personally believe is true for the most part all the time). However, the acceptance of abortion was based on a necessary value system which stemmed both from a high infant mortality rate and a high rate of deaths in childbirth. They believed, for these specific reasons (along with the "demons wanting to kill new life" religious factor), that life began a week after birth (if the father chose to accept the child). The acceptability of abortion was a factor of mortality, which, in our time, is no longer a major factor.

Now for the Anti-abortion side: Life begins at the moment of conception, and so the abortion of a child is the same as killing any other person. This position comes from the fact that the fetus has a heartbeat separate from the mother from a very early stage in the pregnancy. Therefore, the same responsibility that the government has to preserve the life of its citizens applies to the fetus as well. And, contrary to the belief of "devout" Catholic Nancy Pelosi, the end to ancient acceptability of abortion was entirely orchestrated by the Christian Church (both the Catholic and the Orthodox sects). Catholicism (and its smaller predecessor, Judaism) was the driving force in applying a moral value to unborn life. And it has been consistent throughout its tenure, even when corruption caused schisms. This was despite the fact that infant mortality did not noticeably decline, and deaths in childbirth were still numerous. It should also be noted that, historically, when the choice was to be made, the child's life was preferred to the mother's.

We live in times when neither the mother's nor the child's life is seriously threatened by the process of childbirth. There are, however, a greater number of birth defects, which are the result of later pregnancies. This is the trend of industrialized countries -- women do not have children until later in life, thus decreasing the chance to actually conceive (hence lower birth rates). It also places a greater risk of defects in the children that are conceived, though this does not change, in any way, the argument at hand. Being "special needs" does not make a person any less human, and so there is no difference in terms with the argument.

As for the argument of "rape/incest": There is no difference in the value of the child's life to anti-abortion people, because of the source of it. Incest doesn't even change the "abstinence" argument. It was still a choice to have sex, and so there is no exception to be made. In the case of rape, the choice was not made by the woman, but neither was it made by the child. Therefore, the child is not to blame for it, and does not deserve to die because of a situation that was beyond control. If the child is to serve as a reminder of the violent act that created him/her, adoption is always a viable option.

The crux of the matter is that one of the purposes of government, according to the Preamble of the Constitution, is to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." How are we securing liberty to our posterity by denying life to those individuals?

Well, there you have it. My stance on abortion, pro-life in all circumstances. I understand the arguments on both sides, and thoroughly deny the premises of the pro-abortion crowd. I also see through the spin, and will never again use the term "pro-choice," because all sides want choice in some form. I may actually start calling the pro-abortion group "anti-responsibility," because abortion is a means of escaping responsibility for one's sexual activity.