October 10th, 2006
I am a Pro-Choicer. I believe in the right to choose. I’ll just state that out in the open. You won’t change my mind on that.
And not that it’s any of your business but I’ve never had an abortion nor do I expect to. I also have no children nor do I plan to.
However, I do have many questions about the Pro-Life/Anti-Abortion view. Mind you, I don’t expect to change your mind either. I’m just curious and interested in a two-way discussion. All (non-hateful) views are welcome.
I find that once I start thinking about the whole when-is-a-baby-a-life debate, I’m just as confused as most anyone. I mean, there’s no evidence as to when exactly a fetus becomes “a living being with a soul”. I’ve read and heard all sorts of debates on the subject.
There’s the thought that a being becomes “a life with a soul” upon conception, but “as many as 50% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage — most often before a woman misses a menstrual period or even knows she is pregnant. About 15% of recognized pregnancies will end in a miscarriage. More than 80% of miscarriages occur within the first three months of pregnancy.” [“Understanding Miscarriages” (WebMD)] If that’s true, wouldn’t it make more sense that a “soul” wouldn’t make permanent residency until after that 3rd month, just in case.
For me, I often think of my brain or mind as connected with my “soul” — I know, symbollically it’s supposed to be your heart — so I looked it up, and while the brain starts to develop in week 3 after conception, it’s not until the 2nd Trimester that brain waves are detectable and it’s not until the 3rd Trimester that there’s rapid brain development and the baby is strong enough that it might survive if born early, though the chances of complications and death are high. [Prenatal Development]
So, for me, I think it would have to be in one of those steps. Maybe.
I guess I really don’t know. I’m not the Creator of Life after all.
Anyway, I guess that’s why I don’t want to make a decision for anyone else as to whether or not she should or shouldn’t be able to have an abortion or where to draw the line. I don’t think you should kill living beings. I think a living being is someone who could survive on his or her own, given the chance, but I guess that’s not the right answer either since there are certainly a whole lot of people of many ages who suffer a whole lot of maladies and injuries who would die without the care of others. We wouldn’t leave our grandparents to die just because they can’t survive on their own or soldiers injured in war.
Then again, I wouldn’t want to ask a woman whose life is at risk to carry a baby to full term or a woman who’s been raped to carry such a heavy reminder of her victimization for nine months or a young teenager who’s almost a baby herself to carry the child of her incestuous father.
I wouldn’t want to refuse anyone her right to make her personal choice whatever it may be. In the end, she’ll answer to God or Buddha or herself, but it’s not my place to judge her. I have so many of my own choices to weigh on my shoulders.
But I keep coming back to some inconsistencies in various arguments. I don’t understand the people who honestly and truly believe that life begins at conception and that with that life comes a “soul” and that it is a sin to abort that life; it is murder. To believe so extreme and completely is one thing. That I can understand, but then to say, that you want to pass a law making this sin illegal with the exception of rape, incest and danger to health…do two sins make a right?
Tags: abortion, pro-choice, anti-abortion, pro-life
