Abortion

As you either know, or have figured out by now, I'm a guy. As a guy, I understand that I have far less of a right to talk about "what a woman can/should do with her body" than a woman does. However, as a citizen, I have every right to discuss what our government does about abortion.

I would have to say that in today's lingo, I'm "pro-choice". This is not to say I think abortion is right or just or a good way to prevent unnecessary births. My personal opinions about Abortion are complicated, and as I have no personal experience with it, irrelevant (which does not mean that I wont talk about them here). I am "pro-choice" because I don't like the idea of President Bush becoming Dr. Bush, OB/GYN. There are a million different reasons why women get abortions. They range from horrible situations like incest and rape all the way to ending an accidental pregnancy. I'm sure woman have gotten abortions for reasons I could never fathom or understand. To think that our government should decide when it's right and wrong to get an abortion is crazy. I completely understand (although I don't agree with) the stance that an abortion is killing a living thing, and that if you believe that, you think most, if not all, abortions are wrong. This does not mean, though, that the government should stop people from making such a personal decision. These are personal decisions, and if you believe that it is wrong, you have made that decision for yourself -- you do not have the right to make such a personal decision for everyone else.

This is where the "pro-choice" movement screws up for itself. They focus on statements like "woman's right to choose", and "my body, my decision". These statements make people think (whether it be right or wrong to think so) that pro-choice = pro-abortion. A MUCH better stance for the pro-choice movement would be to say, "Abortion is a very serious, difficult topic. We think it should be a decision between a woman and her doctor after weighing all the issues." I know you can't put that on a billboard or scream it on the steps of the supreme court, but that's exactly the point. I understand people yelling and screaming about gun control (the topic of a later blog, I guarantee), because that is a much less personal issue. It's an issue of personal freedom and whatever. Abortion is a serious issue with serious repercussions for each individual involved. Those people on both sides who scream and rally are not treating this issue with the sensitivity it deserves. This behavior also leads to statements like "All abortion is wrong." Clearly there are cases of the health of the mother that could make an abortion a reasonable choice.

Partial Birth Abortion. Sounds quite horrible, huh? Sounds kinda like parents who wait until the last minute to make the decision if they want to keep the baby? That's what many people want you to think, but this is obviously not the case. Partial birth abortion is used mostly to save the life of the mother. The fact that this is now illegal is scary. There is a good article on this here.

Basically, we need to sit down, as a nation, and realize that being pro-choice does not mean that you support abortion, it means that you support the medical community and understand that a doctor who has been practicing medicine for 20 years knows more about health issues than all 535 congressmen (that's 100 senators and 435 representatives, for those of you confused) put together. We need to start realizing that life is complex. Things are not usually RIGHT and WRONG.