The Many Sides of the Abortion Issue

And just how can an issue have more than two sides? There are two sides to every issue, it’s like a rule or something, isn’t it? You have your pro-lifers and your pro-choicers and each side’s position is quite clear, thankyouverymuch. Why complicate things?

Well, upon closer examination, most issues do have more than two sides, even if the ongoing debates about them seem two-sided. And, yes, indeed, there are pro-lifers and pro-choicers and their positions are quite clear — on the surface, at least. But get beneath the oversimplified veneer of stereotypical representations in the language of sound bites and you will begin to understand just how multi-faceted one supposedly two-sided hot-button issue can really be.

For example, pro-choicers disagree about whether the right to choose should be unlimited or restricted (by trimester) and pro-lifers disagree about whether there should be exceptions (health conditions, rape or incest) to a ban on abortion. So, there really are more than two positions, which is probably the reason why the abortion issue is so volatile, even though its political minefield is populated by a great deal of uncertainty.

How can someone call himself pro-life if he is willing to allow for exceptions? After all, it is not an unborn baby’s fault if it was conceived via rape or incest. And doctors can be — and are more frequently than most of us would like to think — wrong because miracles (for lack of a better word) can and do happen, regardless of the results medical tests to detect potential complications of pregnancy.

How can someone call himself pro-choice if he is willing to place restrictions on when and why abortions may be performed? The abortion issue is about the right to choose, isn’t it? So, how can something that is recognized as a right be restricted beyond the obvious health and safety regulations?

Although they are sometimes far less pleasant to talk to than some of their wishy-washy counterparts, the non-viloent radical elements — the violent ones are merely criminals who think they’ve found a cause to rationalize their pathology so they don’t count as anything other than a tragic aside in civilized debate — of the pro-lifers and the pro-choicers are usually a more principled bunch because they are certain of where they stand and are unwilling to make exceptions or compromises.

Of course, an unwillingness to make exceptions or compromises in not conducive to the resolution of a conflict, but the radical elements serve their purpose in defining the numerous ethical implications of each side of the debate, which ultimately demonstrates the motives behind them.

It is difficult to suspect the motives of the pro-choicers because their agenda is quite clear. They believe that abortion is an inalienabe right which must be preserved and that is it, there is no apparent hidden agenda. Where the pro-choicers become suspect is in some of the rationalizations they use to defend the right to choose.

Because there is no getting around the fact that a fetus has a detectible heartbeat at only four weeks gestation, pro-choicers can be easily put on the defensive with this proven scientific fact. But, rather than admit to the fact that abortion is the killing of a living thing but not the murder of a person they have come up with some ridiculous notions about fetal parasites and the subjugation of women’s reproductive organs — too weird.

They should stick to the old “back-alley-coat-hanger” metaphors and stop trying to paint abortion-on-demand as a good thing for women’s rights rather than a sometimes necessary evil which should be kept regulated and safe. Abortion is a vile thing, but outlawing it only makes it more so by handing the business of it to the criminal element.

Now, the motives of some of the pro-lifers could be called suspect because there is more to the agenda of people who assert, in their efforts to see Roe v. Wade overturned, that they are championing for the unborn. Of course, some are sincere in their cause because they truly believe that life begins at conception and that all life is sacred. They favor the implementation of a ban as a means of preventing abortion because they think that simply outlawing a thing will make that thing go away.

But other pro-lifers do not appear to be so ignorant of how things are as opposed to how things should be when they speak of responsible behavior and how abortion-on-demand keeps women from facing the consequences of their actions which leads to more irresponsible behavior.

So, what of the unborn? How can one champion for those who cannot speak for themselves while referrring to them as the consequences of irresponsible behavior, as if they are a form of punishment along the lines of a “Scarlet Letter?” Do these people really wish to save the unborn from the abortionists or do they wish to take their cause further by making reproduction into a privilege for which one must be deemed qualified?

To test the sincerity of pro-lifers who seem to have more on their minds than the unborns’ right to life propose that the legal status of abortion is not relevant to their cause and suggest that, if they truly wish to save the unborn, a major societal attitude adjustment is in order because it is not the legality of abortion that causes some young single women to make that terrible choice, but rather the potential social and economic consequences of single motherhood.

The pro-lifers who recognize that all babies are blessings regardless of the age and marital status of their mothers or the circumstances under which they were conceived probably have no other agenda, but the motives of pro-lifers who continue to speak of responsibility and behavioral consequnces are suspect because they do not appear to be championing for the unborn so much as they are championing for the cause of chastity.