Call Me Oppressive But I'm Pro-Life
It's hard to be pro-life in the 90s on a public college campus. You're labeled as a sexist, bigoted, overzealous Christian bent on bringing all women under your control (and that's without using profanity). Yet I am pro-life and forever will be. I refuse to believe in a practice that seriously undermines the value of human life (something everyone should appreciate, whether you have religious beliefs or not) and is the ultimate cop-out of responsibility.
I've heard all the pro-choice (actually I like to call it pro-death because you can choose not to have an abortion but most pro-choicers refuse to acknowledge this, that's not their goal) arguments and I know the most common pro-life arguments are beaten into the ground so I will try to present some ideas that are perhaps not quite so common. For quite some time my libertarian leanings made me a fence-straddler on abortion. I have always believed abortion to be simply horrendous but I thought I should put up with it because we live in a republic where a highly undemocratic Supreme Court has declared it legal and it appears that the majority of Americans support it (I'm not too sure on this). Then I realized that since abortion is murder after all (more on this in a minute) and since murder is certainly infringing on the rights of another it is not unconstitutional to outlaw it. I can sympathize with those that hold my former view because I see where they are coming from. I do see that abortion is sometimes necessary, when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. Also, no woman should be made to carry the baby of a man that raped her.
I am not a sexist; women can and should have all the right in the world to control themselves and their bodies, but a baby is something entirely different. It is another human life, not just a part of their body. An unwanted pregnancy is by no means merely the woman's fault. The father should be held just as if not more responsible. This is what worries me most about abortion, the sheer lack of responsibility often shown by both parents--"We screwed up, oh well, I'll just get an abortion." To view human life as this disposable is scary. A common argument here is that the parents are in a bad socioeconomic status and therefore bringing a baby into these conditions would be cruel. Oh, and killing it isn't? That makes a lot of sense. There are so many alternatives to abortion--many couples in the world, for one reason or another, cannot have children of their own and would greatly love to raise a child.
Pro-choicers love to tout the argument that a fetus is not alive--it is only tissue. Do they really believe this? My eyes were opened a few weeks ago at church when Father Vince read a list of questions asked at a clinic to a prospective woman seeking an abortion. I can't remember them all but they included offers to name the fetus, have sonagrams (think, baby pictures) taken, have it baptized, and have it cremated, even asking if the mother would like to purchase an urn. So, this is nonviable tissue huh? I can't speak for anyone else but I don't read my fingernails their last rites and burn them after I trim them. Life begins at conception and it appears even pro-choicers know that. This taken into consideration, abortion is murder and nothing but.
Another great point that Father Vince raised is the subject of money. It's always about the money. Abortions are quite expensive and doctors that perform them certainly receive quite a bit of compensation. Basic economics here--if abortions were free there would be no abortions.
Concerning politicians, their abortion stance is important to me but not all-important. I would be willing to vote for a pro-choicer if I agreed with most of their other positions and especially if they took the "personally opposed but this is a democracy" view. A position that I refuse to accept; however, is that of being against banning late-term abortions. I refrain myself from describing this procedure here, if you'd care to read all about it it's in my Lame Duck essay about President Clinton.
Finally let's examine a great hypocrisy among many liberal pro-choicers, raised by the almighty Rush. Wacko environmentalists (as opposed to responsible environmentalists, which I consider myself) and militant pro-choicers are often one in the same. They don't want to tear down the rain forests because maybe someday a plant discovered there could provide a cure for AIDS, cancer, or some other disease. It's been 26 years since Roe v. Wade. A child aborted in 1973 could now be old enough to be turning into a world renown scientist that one day might have found a cure for any number of horrible diseases. That won't happen; none of the great number of children aborted since then will never have the chance to dream, to benefit their fellow humans, and to experience this wonderful life. Thank God I was not aborted. Aren't you glad you weren't?