In the debate over abortion, I think the nays have it whether or not they’re right. Why? Because this is a discussion over civil rights. It’s the pregnant woman (often: teen)’s choice, not the choice of a bunch of people debating over the flickerings of life when there are wars going on all over the world. Do these same people work tirelessly for peace? Almost never. In fact, in generous acts of hypocrisy, abortion clinics are often bombed. These people just want something to complain about, something that makes them feel righteous and good. But regardless, I think the nays ARE right, because they’re thinking logically, with open minds, instead of looking at the world in terms of black and white.
Firstly, making abortion illegal will not stop it from happening. What it will cause is a lot of stress for teens and young women. Forcing them to have that child is essentially ruining their lives. How can they concentrate on school? How can they manage college? And there’s no time for a part-time job. Just as their life should be taking off, it would crash to the ground. If abortion were made illegal, I think you would see three things: a higher suicide rate, incidences of girls attempting to perform abortions on themselves, and more illegal abortion clinics, which are highly unsafe. Before blindly insisting every fetus be allowed to become a child, try thinking about the life this teeming earth already holds.
Secondly, the issue of rape and contraceptives. There is no way you can insist that a woman who was raped must have that baby. But on another angle, if abortion is made illegal with that as an exception, how would you know who was telling the truth and who was faking? Women already lie sometimes about rape.
Contraceptives are very nice, personally I take birth control pills, but they’re still only ~99% preventative. So what if a woman is taking such measures responsibly and still gets pregnant? To insist she have the baby would be akin to insisting that only people who intend to have children should ever have sex, which is ridiculous.
Thirdly, who’s picking the points here? Is it a child from conception? Or 1 month in? Or 3 months in? Or at birth? Let’s assume it’s a child the moment it’s conceived, and a woman gets an abortion in the first few weeks. Well, what if she and her mate had decided not to have sex that night? Would that be murder, too? Either way, a possibility for life was ended. Or assuming a young woman generally gets pregnant within the first two years of having sex, if she takes birth control to prevent it, is that murder, too? Who’s making the decisions about where the line is drawn? Nobody has the right to that decision but the woman whose very womb it is.
With how far people go to interfere with other people’s families these days, seizing children (sometimes wrongly) and whatnot, they seem to have forgotten something: a mother and child can be separated, but a mother and fetus cannot without killing the fetus or them both. Pregnancy is an age-old bond between a mother and her developing child. Until that child is born, Nature (or God) has the ultimate word: these are intertwined beings, and one is currently residing in, even a PART of, the other’s body. The woman has the right to decide: will I allow this estrangement of my body to continue? Will I give birth to life, or will I hold off? Nobody else can make that decision. To insist upon making abortion illegal is to insist upon outward control of another person’s body. And even if you consider it murder, freedom to do whatever one wishes with their own body, which a fetus is inevitably a part of and cannot stand on its own without, is more important. We seem to have forgotten that, but it’s the principle this “Land of the Free” was built upon: Patrick Henry’s silly notion,
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”