Editor’s Note: It is the position of AFNN, that abortion can only be justified in the most extreme circumstances. Having said that, articles we may not totally agree with can serve the purpose of honing our argument in support of the unborn.
Ed.
I suspect I am fairly unique in the writers for AFNN in one respect. In the abortion debate, I stand closer to pro-choice than pro-life. Though I don’t actually stand in either camp. My thinking on the controversial topics in this area can best be summarized like this: If you have kids, and you are opposed to contraception, sex education, and abortion, you are going to be raising your grandkids.
If there is one thing we know from human history, the Bible, and biology, it’s that humans have an overwhelming drive to reproduce. And young people have throughout history let their emotions override their reason. So parents, make sure your kids, especially your daughters are educated on the biology of reproduction. And make sure they have contraception for the time their emotions override their reason. Why especially your daughters? Because as we know, boys don’t get pregnant. That is an absolute biological fact, and the reason that, fairly or unfairly, responsibility for contraception falls primarily on the woman. Boys don’t get pregnant.
To be clear, by sex education, I am not talking about the far-left version of ‘education’ that claims that gender is a personal choice and girls can have a penis. Reserve that for college level abnormal psychology. In sex education, teach the biology of reproduction, menstruation, conception, etc. That is what an adolescent should learn. In addition, somewhere between 6th and 10th grade, show the girls a video of an average birth, from water breaking, through labor. Even a visit to a birthing center watch an uncomplicated birth would be a good learning experience, though the chance of being allowed to do that is slim. Watching the process of giving birth should discourage them from desiring children any time soon.
Now to the heart of the matter. I thought that Roe v Wade was a correct decision in that the women should be allowed to have an abortion. But the logic underlying the decision was lacking. A logical and fair decision could have been made based on the constitutional amendments that forbid slavery and involuntary servitude. Or even by the well-established precedent that people have a right to seek medical care. To claim that there is some sort of civil right to an abortion is simply ridiculous. There is a right to health care, and a medically necessary abortion for cases when the fetus is non-viable would fall under that. As would a pregnancy that threatened the life or physical health of the mother. But never has any society recognized that a woman had a right to an abortion, and the Founding Fathers would never have accepted such an idea.
Rape, incest, and the health of the mother would all be valid reasons to allow an abortion without declaring it some sort of civil right. Even allowing abortions during the first trimester could be justified under health, since indisputably the act of childbirth is dangerous. All of that being said, a law that unequivocally bans or allows abortions is far too broad, even unenforceable. It has rightly been said that tough cases make bad laws, and abortions are always tough case. To make matters worse, the supreme court has never been consistent in the abortion rulings. The law needs to take reason and circumstances into consideration.
It is a rarely mentioned fact in this discussion that several states have passed laws declaring that murdering a pregnant woman was a murder of two people. Or injuring her in such a way that it killed the fetus, was murder. And the supreme court has allowed those laws to stand. The first time the courts allowed such a law to stand, Roe V Wade became moot, because that law by clear implication recognized the fetus as a human being. Now I personally have serious issues with those laws, because they also imply that the state can take control of a woman as soon as she in pregnant. To keep her safe. For her own good. But the courts allowed them. It should have been obvious that the existence of these laws made Roe v Wade invalid, but it didn’t happen until this week. It should be interesting to see the further fallout of those laws as this most recent decision is digested.
What is needed in the discussion of an abortion is a discussion with the mother, the father (when rape or incest is not involved), and one or more doctors. Perhaps even a board of doctors, psychologists, social workers, and the mother. The intent of the board is to find the best solution for both the mother and child. In a normal pregnancy, the right to an abortion is not and never was an absolute right, it’s a balance between the mother and the potential child.
At the same time, some decisions are clear cut. An ectopic pregnancy is hugely dangerous to the mother and should be terminated as soon as it is determined. Similarly, a non-viable fetus should be aborted as soon as it is determined to be the case. No doubt there are other similarly clear-cut cases. But what about the cases that are not clear cut? Where there are birth defects that can still result in a child. Autism for example. The genetic test can determine that at a very early stage of development. Can we require a woman to take on the burden of an autistic child who may never be able to live independently? I don’t know the answer, I am just asking the question.
Perhaps the worst problem with Roe v Wade was that it didn’t actually settle anything Sure, technically it made abortion legal. But it also enshrined into (supreme court declared) law the balancing process by trimester that created the patchwork of abortion laws across the country. Laws that did everything from absolutely forbid abortion after the start of the second trimester to the laws that allowed abortion up through the third trimester. Laws that tried to define when abortions were medically necessary, and other laws that said in effect abortions were never medically necessary after the first trimester. Roe v Wade was a mess, and the overturning of it will create a bigger mess.
Finally: Happy Mothers’ Day to all, especially my wife and my mother.
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How ironic that after your pro-abortion diatribe, you wish your mother Happy Mother’s Day. You can only say that because she chose life for you. 63 million were never given the chance you got. Regardless of whether you are pro-abortion or pro-life, abortion is always a selfish choice. Whether you believe it is murder or not, it is always a selfish act. Roe v. Wade was an integral catalyst to the coarsening of America and the cheapening of respect for the Supreme Court due to its politicization. A mother’s life is very rarely endangered by a pregnancy. There is no genetic test, prenatal or otherwise, for autism. You’re scraping the bottom for ways to justify killing an innocent human. Justice Alito’s draft decision is merely a compromise, not an end to abortion, unfortunately. Pro-aborters should be happy it hasn’t been outlawed outright. Liberals are not good with compromise. Their death cult rants say much about them.
“Or even by the well-established precedent that people have a right to seek medical care.” Anyone would be hard pressed to make this claim, since death, by choice, is not a part of any medical care that I know of.
Comparing the unborn to an amendment that freed the slaves begins with the unborn being compared to slavery. I have never heard anyone make that argument. I think an argument needs to be rational and logical to be successful. Arguing in favor of a situation where the baby could be or could not be, enslaved, seems tenuous to me. Enslaved means that the enslaved has no say in the determination of any outcome, which argues that the enslaved is less than living. I will admit that I am not as well read as many, but that seems to me to be arguing in favor of killing anyone as it does in arguing for the right to kill a baby, which, nowhere that I know of does any biological entity, mother or father of the specie, not do what it can to protect the unborn. And, until recently, human beings were part of that exclusive club.
Throughout history, humans have understood that that baby growing in the womb is a person who will grow up and be a part of their family. It has only been recently that aberrant ideas originating from aberrant philosophical leanings, and several political ideas that encouraged the idea that wasting your offspring is a viable opportunity, and there is no rational argument for that, just selfish vain attempts at covering up man’s mistakes and sins. When the time came that man chose himself over his offspring, he lessened himself in the eyes of his Maker.
You have your thoughts, and I have mine.
I am pretty sure the reference to slavery was putting the mother in involuntary servitude to the child or to the father. I have seen that discussion in ref to roe v wade in the past. It wasnt about putting the child in slavery.
I’m sure you are right. I’m just proposing how it could have caused a problem with an argument made, like that. I watched several interesting discussions on the history and the run up to how Roe v. Wade came about, that I was never aware of. Megan Kelly’s podcast, which included a lot from Glenn Greenwald, opened me up to more than I realized.
I’ve been fundamentally against the idea of Roe v. Wade without having to see the origins of the bad law, from the first time I heard of it.