On the Subject of Abortion

I am pro-life-pro-choice. 

 

Pro-life: I believe life begins at conception and anything done to terminate a baby is murder.

 

Pro-choice: I believe the choice is in the actions, not in the consequences. I believe your choice was to have sex. Pregnancy is a consequence (good or bad) of having sex, and if you want to risk that consequence by engaging in sex, that is YOUR CHOICE. I believe that once you are pregnant, you have many choices about what the child's future will be, but murder is not one of them.

 

The 'what if' questions are always raised in debates, and while 'what ifs' in any debate are always possible, they are almost always rare. "What if the woman was raped?" "What if the woman's life is in danger because of the pregnancy?" Again, these instances are very rare. But no matter the circumstance of the conception or the events during pregnancy, the child is still a child and to terminate would still be murder. A rape does not make a child a non-child and pregnancy problems do not make one life more important than another. No, it is not fair that a man rape a woman and leave her pregnant, and no, it is not fair that a woman could die because of the baby inside of her, but LIFE IS NOT FAIR. It isn't fair that my dad was almost killed and is now disabled because some guy was careless. It isn't fair that my husband has to take care of his mother. But unfair circumstances do not justify murder; unfair circumstances show true character. 

 

The fact that these questions are even raised shows a shift of our society in fundamental beliefs. Firstly, we have lost the value of life. We do not see life as precious and have become elitists to think that one life is more important than another. Secondly, we have lost personal responsibility. We engage in activities we know the consequences of, and when those consequences happen we blame everyone and everything else to justify the absolving of those them. The Pro-Choice movement is, at its core, a belief that one can choose his or her consequences. What a ridiculous notion! In promoting the idea of consequence choices, we have pushed our society even farther away from people accepting personal responsibility.

 

 And thus, I believe the abortion problem in our society is a result of our lack of valuing life and our lack of personal responsibility.