1 post tagged “abortion”

On the other hand, I certainly don't feel that conception is the point at which it becomes sacred.  Losing a single cell with a unique DNA strand is just not something I can get concerned about.  A clump of cells, or tiny bit of tissue doesn't engage me morally either.  People don't bat an eyelash at the fact that fertilized eggs often fail to implant in the uterus wall, or that miscarriages often happen in the first month.

Later on though, few would claim a miscarriage isn't traumatic or tragic, and few would go easy on a doctor who destroyed a fetus through medical incompetence.  In general, we recognize that there is value there, and as the pregnancy goes on the stakes get higher and higher.  I'd even say that the stakes continue to rise after birth: the loss of a baby after a few days, however traumatic, is still slightly less traumatic than losing one after a few years.

It seems we just don't have a good idea of where the threshold is between not sacred and sacred.  It is the very definition of a gray area.  Regardless of your final political stance, if you can't admit that then I don't feel you're being intellectually honest.

With all that said, I am politically pro-choice.

I took that stance a long time ago because I just couldn't see the practical benefits to outlawing abortion.  One might say that practicality has no place in what seems to be a moral issue, but I disagree.  There is no ideal world where all pregnancies are wanted: that's just not one of the options.  So a pro-life world would be one where many illegal abortions continued anyways, and where unwanted babies were born by the millions to women who either had not the means to raise them or wanted absolutely nothing to do with them.  In the end, it just seems like it would make the world a worse place.

But there's another question, too, which I hadn't even gotten to.  And it's a question pro-lifers may not have a very good answer for:

  Question at an Pro-Life Demonstration

Of course, the simple answer is "yes, send them to jail -- and the doctor too".  But again, I ask you if we'd actually be making the world a better place.  In fact, I respect that the people in the video at least struggled with the question.

Before you laugh too hard at those pro-lifers, remember that most pro-choicers haven't given a lot of subtle thought to the issue either.

Maybe if we at least accepted what a difficult issue it is to resolve, we'd at least hate each other a little less for having different opinions.