Elections are won and lost when the subject of abortion becomes part of the campaigns. And these days it always does. This past week, abortion also entered the health care debate on Capitol Hill with congressmen saying that once abortions are free, even more women will get them. And one nutty Kansas representative even said that if abortions had been free in the 1960s, President Obama's mother might have chosen to abort him.
I believe abortion is today's Civil War issue. There's no middle ground. You're either for it or against it. As for my own view on abortion, it's my guess that many people might misjudge me, pigeonholing me on the wrong side. Because I'm a liberal, people assume I'm for a woman's right to choose. Because I'm a registered Democrat, I'm a supporter of abortion rights. Because I'm a woman, I think women should feel free to choose abortions. Because I'm not religious, I support abortions.
If you expect all of those to be true about my abortion views, you'd be wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. I am 100% against abortion. My reasons are many:
1) I don't know how any woman can have an abortion after looking at an ultrasound of a weeks-old fetus moving around in her uterus.
2) I don't accept the "her own body" argument. Yes, the fetus is inside the woman, but she is the keeper, the carrier. She doesn't own that baby.
3) When a woman decides to kill a fetus -- baby, to my way of thinking -- she is making a decision for someone else, someone who has no voice.
4) I believe birth control, not abortion, is the ultimate right to choose. I also believe in birth control beforehand, not after the (f)act. Too many women use abortion as birth control. This is the 21st century, for god's sake! Birth control pills have been around for 50 years. Since that time, many other contraceptives have arrived on the market, obliterating unplanned pregnancies for women who use their heads when they're going to have sex with men. Or, at least, that's the way it should be.
5) Too many women go along with men's pleas to have sex without condoms and the women themselves either are too lazy or have decided not to use birth control because of the slight possibility of side effects. If you haven't learned to say
NO, then at least take the damn pills or use whatever kind of contraceptive you want. A few side effects are minor compared with killing a human being. A woman who allows herself to become pregnant when it's something she doesn't want should understand that a baby might be conceived because of her decision. There are consequences and one should not be the life of an innocent baby.
With that said, I want to counter something that the Religious Right, pro-life crowd do -- or don't do. They fight abortions with all of their might. That's their choice and I support them on this one issue. At the same time, once the babies who aren't aborted are born, many of these same people do little to support such children. For example, the Right fights any increases in the Head Start program, and they vote against school lunch programs and welfare increases for poor children. There are even politicians who say hunger inspires children to work.
It's admirable to fight abortions, but you had better decide what to do with children who will be born if abortions once again become unlawful and difficult to obtain. (Remember the orphanages of the past?) There are consequences no matter which way you go. For me, a live, healthy baby trumps just about anything else. And I believe everything should be done to keep him that way once he's here.
