Abortion Rant
I think I'm going to just have to stop reading contributions to the blogosphere that discuss the abortion issue. It's too divisive, too hate-filled, too rife with rhetoric and histrionics.
My opinion on the matter is this: abortion is a great evil. It is horrible that women are fooled into believing that the life inside them is not real, not a person, just so they will not be inconvenienced by pregnancy. I don't buy for a minute the argument that birth control and abortion are inherent in a woman's "right to control one's fertility." The real right that a woman has is the right to govern her chastity. This is why rape is such a crime, because it takes away a woman's right to choose her sexual partner, it violates her privacy and damages her physically against her will. However, the right to choose a sexual partner is NOT a license for consequence-free sex. Choosing a sexual partner means opening the door to conception, period. Birth control doesn't completely prevent conception, thus sex = babies no matter what "precautions" you take. Choosing sex, therefore, means choosing life. I also don't accept the argument that forcing a woman to have a baby is depriving her of inherent freedoms. The baby has inherent freedoms too, and a sacrifice of 9 months discomfort is not too high a price to demand for one's life, especially when in 9 cases out of 10 that life came into being from a woman's free and conscious decision to have sex with the partner she chose. For those rare cases where the mother's life is in danger, there's no reason not to treat both mother and child as a person with the right to their lives.
However, vast numbers of people do not agree with me. They do not see the truth of the child's personhood because their worldview prevents them seeing it. They consider the personhood of a fetus as an attack on the personhood of a woman. Not unlike slavery in the early days of America, so many people have such strong feelings on the subject that there can't even be any reasonable discussion about it. Like the issue of "states rights," the issue of "personal freedoms / reproductive choice" takes an obvious wrong (like slavery or abortion) and makes it into a larger issue that can't be easily legislated. Thankfully, abortion is not meaningfully tied to anyone's livelihood, or we really would have a war over this.
This is NOT an issue that can be won at the ballot box. The civil war freed the slaves in 90% of America, yet African Americans continued to live in virtual slavery for a hundred more years until the civil rights movement took hold. Even now, with laws in place that protect minorities, African Americans live in this country as second citizens, denied the opportunities that most whites take for granted and stuck in perpetual cycles of crime, poverty and oppression. This is still a country divided by race 150 years after slavery was outlawed. In countries where abortion has been criminalized, abortions did not stop. Nor did unwanted children suddenly become wanted. There will always be unwanted pregnancies. They are a fact of life. Outlawing abortion is only 1/3 of the solution to the problem of unwanted children. Without both an increase to the systems in place that allow economically disadvantaged women to raise their children (or an improvement of the system for adopting children,) as well as much greater societal support for motherhood and all its challenges, we will continue to have a country divided on this issue even if every state in the nation ends abortion.
The challenge that faces me, as a member of the human race, is to encourage those around me to choose life whenever possible. So I pray for babies and their mothers, I contribute to organizations that give financial, emotional and medical assistance to women in crisis pregnancies, I use NFP, breastfeed, advocate for mothers' rights, and hope one day to adopt a child. I oppose torture, the death penalty and the war in Iraq. I call on our government to do something material about the thousands of people dying in Darfur, the millions who are hungry around the world, the women who are oppressed and prevented from receiving an education or pursuing an independent future, and the lack of information and opportunity that, in my opinion, is the true cause of terrorism.
I will not vote for someone who claims to be pro-life if I fundamentally disagree with their positions on other matters.
I will not allow abortion to become the only pro-life issue in this world, this country, this election.
I will not allow my fellow Catholics to impugn my commitment to the faith because I intend to vote Democrat.
I will, however, continue to pray most vehemently that there will be peace between those of differing opinions and that love wins out, as it must.
My opinion on the matter is this: abortion is a great evil. It is horrible that women are fooled into believing that the life inside them is not real, not a person, just so they will not be inconvenienced by pregnancy. I don't buy for a minute the argument that birth control and abortion are inherent in a woman's "right to control one's fertility." The real right that a woman has is the right to govern her chastity. This is why rape is such a crime, because it takes away a woman's right to choose her sexual partner, it violates her privacy and damages her physically against her will. However, the right to choose a sexual partner is NOT a license for consequence-free sex. Choosing a sexual partner means opening the door to conception, period. Birth control doesn't completely prevent conception, thus sex = babies no matter what "precautions" you take. Choosing sex, therefore, means choosing life. I also don't accept the argument that forcing a woman to have a baby is depriving her of inherent freedoms. The baby has inherent freedoms too, and a sacrifice of 9 months discomfort is not too high a price to demand for one's life, especially when in 9 cases out of 10 that life came into being from a woman's free and conscious decision to have sex with the partner she chose. For those rare cases where the mother's life is in danger, there's no reason not to treat both mother and child as a person with the right to their lives.
However, vast numbers of people do not agree with me. They do not see the truth of the child's personhood because their worldview prevents them seeing it. They consider the personhood of a fetus as an attack on the personhood of a woman. Not unlike slavery in the early days of America, so many people have such strong feelings on the subject that there can't even be any reasonable discussion about it. Like the issue of "states rights," the issue of "personal freedoms / reproductive choice" takes an obvious wrong (like slavery or abortion) and makes it into a larger issue that can't be easily legislated. Thankfully, abortion is not meaningfully tied to anyone's livelihood, or we really would have a war over this.
This is NOT an issue that can be won at the ballot box. The civil war freed the slaves in 90% of America, yet African Americans continued to live in virtual slavery for a hundred more years until the civil rights movement took hold. Even now, with laws in place that protect minorities, African Americans live in this country as second citizens, denied the opportunities that most whites take for granted and stuck in perpetual cycles of crime, poverty and oppression. This is still a country divided by race 150 years after slavery was outlawed. In countries where abortion has been criminalized, abortions did not stop. Nor did unwanted children suddenly become wanted. There will always be unwanted pregnancies. They are a fact of life. Outlawing abortion is only 1/3 of the solution to the problem of unwanted children. Without both an increase to the systems in place that allow economically disadvantaged women to raise their children (or an improvement of the system for adopting children,) as well as much greater societal support for motherhood and all its challenges, we will continue to have a country divided on this issue even if every state in the nation ends abortion.
The challenge that faces me, as a member of the human race, is to encourage those around me to choose life whenever possible. So I pray for babies and their mothers, I contribute to organizations that give financial, emotional and medical assistance to women in crisis pregnancies, I use NFP, breastfeed, advocate for mothers' rights, and hope one day to adopt a child. I oppose torture, the death penalty and the war in Iraq. I call on our government to do something material about the thousands of people dying in Darfur, the millions who are hungry around the world, the women who are oppressed and prevented from receiving an education or pursuing an independent future, and the lack of information and opportunity that, in my opinion, is the true cause of terrorism.
I will not vote for someone who claims to be pro-life if I fundamentally disagree with their positions on other matters.
I will not allow abortion to become the only pro-life issue in this world, this country, this election.
I will not allow my fellow Catholics to impugn my commitment to the faith because I intend to vote Democrat.
I will, however, continue to pray most vehemently that there will be peace between those of differing opinions and that love wins out, as it must.