Abortion: Why it is such a divisive subject. (LONG Post.)

Jul 20, 2022, 10:57 AM

If there were ever a subject where nearly ALL the people are on one “side” or the other, it is abortion. That divisiveness I spoke of comes from many different directions.

First, there is not even general agreement from a legal standpoint, or a moral standpoint, among people as to when “life” begins. Does it begin at the moment of conception, when one egg begins to subdivide and replicate? Or, does it only begin when a fetus has grown to the point where it can survive outside the womb? This is called “viability”, and becomes a major talking point in discussions about abortion.

The very dictionary meaning of the word “abortion” is blurred. Several distinct and different associations show up when you look up that word:

The deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy.

The expulsion of a fetus from the uterus by natural causes before it is able to survive independently.

The arrest of the development of an organ, typically a seed or fruit.

An object or undertaking regarded by the speaker as unpleasant or badly made or carried out.

All of the above are forms of a dictionary definition of abortion. But, in all the incarnations, abortion means the termination of SOMETHING before its normal, natural, successful conclusion.

Even if you put aside the argument that abortion of a developing human fetus is MURDER, and, that is a HUGE argument to just set aside, many other contrasting views will still remain.

Should a woman, or in some cases, a child barely into puberty themselves, be forced to carry on a pregnancy that was the result of incest, of violent rape, or of drug fueled “date rape”?

Should a woman be forced to carry on a pregnancy where there is a very real chance that taking it to fruition will mean her own death?

Should a woman be forced to carry on a pregnancy where genetic testing has found birth defects, and the potential child will never have anything approaching a “normal” life. Where in some cases, the defects are so severe that survival after birth would almost certainly not be possible, even with the wonders of modern medicine?

Should a woman be forced to carry on a pregnancy where she and / or her partner were taking active steps to PREVENT a pregnancy, and those birth control methods failed them?

All these are notable exceptions to the case where partners just had naive, unprotected sex, and figured an unwanted pregnancy would never happen to THEM, or either they just never thought about the ramifications of sex at all, they were just out for a good time.

As I pointed out earlier, the argument that abortion of a new human being, growing inside a woman's womb, is just plain MURDER is more than just an argument. In most cases, before Roe vs Wade was adjudicated before the Supreme Court in 1973, abortion was a highly illegal, dangerous practice, carried out in shrouded secrecy, when it did occur at all. Roe changed all that, and in the intervening years between 1973 and 2019, the most recent cumulative summary I could find, there have been over 63,459,781 abortions performed in the United States alone, a truly staggering number to contemplate.

Even though I KNOW what my feelings on abortion are, they are not easily articulated. And, they come from a position of clear bias. My wife and I were among the unfortunate 20% of married couples who had no real definable medical issues, and yet struggled mightily to “get pregnant”. And, believe me, it was not for lack of actively trying! Starting in our second year of trying, we began spending many, many dollars at different fertility specialists and clinics. It ultimately took six years and many THOUSANDS of dollars before we successfully welcomed our first child via GIFT surgery, which is one step away from in vitro-fertilization. It would be another six years and failed repeats of the same cycle, and giving up, before finally, God granted us a singular miracle, natural pregnancy, which resulted in our second child.

During the interim time while we were struggling those first six years, we also checked into adoption. This is where my personal “bias” against abortion stems from. There are literally thousands of couples in the United States who, just like us, were struggling with infertility, and seeking possible adoptions. So many, that we were told flat out that the possibility of adopting a normal, healthy, Caucasian infant were basically slim to none. There was a several YEAR waiting list for public adoptions like that.

And, after checking into “private” adoptions via several different organizations, most of which even had church affiliations of some form or other, it became clear that this was nothing more than “buying” a baby on a glorified “black market”. The more money you were willing to spend, the higher up the list you could move. But, in any event, it would have been $25-30 THOUSAND dollars, plus the birth mother's medical expenses. Not possible for us. And, this was in the late 80's, I shudder to think what those same adoptions might cost today.

Against that backdrop, there were more than SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND pregnancies a year being voluntarily ended in the US due to abortions. In some years, over 1.2 MILLION of them. So, not hard to figure out that I would eventually be on the side that would try to steer women toward giving birth and putting those children up for immediate adoption, instead of terminating their lives by abortion.

But, as I said, there are SO many permutations as to WHY a woman (or young girl) would seek an abortion, there is no “One size fits all” law that could ever be enacted. And, once again, that discussion only begins AFTER the “legalized murder” argument has been lost by the “Right to Life” advocates. They lost it in 1973, and yet, now, they have suddenly UN-lost it with the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe vs Wade.

So now, once again, the arguments over abortion rage on. How do I formulate a view, and speak it into life so that it is not misconstrued? Here goes:

I cannot condemn a woman for seeking an abortion in the event of a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest.

I cannot condemn her for seeking an abortion if continuing the pregnancy will jeopardize her own life.

I cannot condemn a woman for seeking an abortion if the genetic tests show birth defects which will render any sort of “normal” life impossible for the child, especially if they show the child will likely die almost immediately upon birth.

But, even in the first case above, pregnancy via incest or rape, and in all other “normal” cases, if the government is going to get involved at all, there should be a corollary. If genetic testing shows your potential child is going to be “normal”, all attempts should be made to put these women in touch with couples seeking to adopt newborns. The government should set up the networks for this to happen.

In the event that the child is NOT adopted immediately, they should be surrendered to state or federally run Orphanages, until such time as they ARE adopted. The federal government is already subsidizing unwed mothers, welfare mothers, etc, this option would probably cut down on that, and would certainly be a boon to the “Right to Life” movement. And, I would venture that though life in an Orphanage is far from ideal, it would probably be preferable to being forced into a home situation where you were not wanted.

This obviously means that I do NOT buy the “My body, My choice” slogan of the Pro-abortionists. You should not be able to terminate a child's potential life just because it is inconvenient to you to bring them into the world once you already have that life started within your womb.

(On a side note, mothers who murder their children deserve a special place in H.ell. I can still recall myself and my wife BOTH crying over the pictures of Susan Smith's two beautiful little boys, who she so callously drowned just so she would be more attractive to her “boyfriend”, at the same time that we were desperately trying anything and everything to have a child of our own.)

And, under NO conditions would I condone what are referred to as “partial-birth abortions”. Call those what they are, murdering a newborn by physically scrambling their brains with medical instruments. I can think of nothing more heinous.

So, in only 10,000 words or so, there are my feelings on abortion. As I said, EVERYONE will mostly likely have their own strong opinions on this subject. The article that came out about Jim Harbaugh's views on it led me to finally put computer pen to paper, and try to articulate my own.

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Abortion: Why it is such a divisive subject. (LONG Post.)

There will be a higher power than me to make that judgement***

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