Abortion

Whenever the debate about abortion is brought up the two sides that form are the “pro-life” and the “pro-choice” camps. Well I will start off by making it clear that I am part of the “pro-life” camp and obviously my arguments and thoughts are biased towards them. However I think we need to stop arguing about two separate topics and ask a really fundamental question first: Is a baby a living human being before it breathes its first breath of air?

First to those that say it is not a living human being prior to birth, I challenge you to justify the charge of man slaughter to a guy that beats up a pregnant woman resulting in the loss of her baby. If it wasn’t a life then how did they slaughter a living human being? If your views are to be logically consistent that man should only be charged with beating up the woman because there was no life taken…I won’t be surprised if we will have a trial like this in the near future. However, while I disagree with those in this camp I would at least concede that they are logically consistent (if it isn’t a life in their mind then abortion would be an option…however as a Christian I of course am told that we are alive in the mothers womb plus since really argues against this stance – we definitely know the difference between an alive baby in the womb and a dead baby in the womb).

Now to those that acknowledge that the baby is a living human being prior to birth, I struggle to see how anyone can be in agreement on this fact and still support abortion. These people are saying that taking innocent life is alright because babies are the only people that actually have never broken the law. I would like to think that with so much information at our disposal we would actually start learning from the mistakes of our past. You may ask what I mean by this…well America in the past took a life and considered it someone else’s property and thought they had the right to do with it as they pleased. Last time I checked that decision has had severe ramifications for this nation that we still haven’t fully recovered from.

Now whenever you debate someone about abortion it is only a matter of time before they will ask “what about the woman that is pregnant because of rape or incest?” Ok I agree they are in a really horrible situation and I feel sorry for them, but there are several problems with this (assuming we are still talking with someone that believes the baby is a living human being)…
1) If that is the only justifiable reason in their mind for abortion then why don’t they push to only allow abortions when a crime has been committed and reported. I know that many women don’t want to report it and it would be even more horrible for them to have to make it public, but if they want to punish someone with death then shouldn’t their at least be a crime.
2) Secondly, if we aren’t willing to sentence the rapist to death for the crime why should it be alright to sentence the innocent baby to death?
3) As of 2000 abortions of babies from rape and incest accounted for 1% of all abortions…I’m willing to concede this point right now if we can stop 99% of abortions (though I would still like to save that last 1%).

The question is then asked “if I’m not going to allow an abortion what am I going to do for this poor woman?” That is a totally fair question…well I believe the Christian church needs to continue to step up and build more Pregnancy Centers to help these mothers. As a Christian I believe that as the need for these would increase with the decrease in abortions the body of Christ would respond in force. I hope and pray that I’m correct on this matter.

The final issue that I want to address is with the presidential election, I just have to point out that the split is very extreme this year. McCain is against abortion completely (perfect rating from National Pro-Life and 0 rating from NARAL) and Clinton and Obama are completely for it (0 rating from National Pro-Life and perfect from NARAL). Frankly when I read what Clinton and Obama support I am appalled. They both obviously support Roe V Wade, but they also support partial-birth abortions and requiring Federal tax dollars spent for abortions. Then on top of that they oppose the Parental Involvement Law, which only requires a single parent to be informed by the abortionist if performing an abortion on an out of state minor. Then the ultimate kicker is that they both co-sponsored a bill in 2005 to research human cloning with the requirement that they “prohibit any survival”. McCain then has opposite views on all these issues. This isn’t meant to be a vote Republican tirade (I have my own concerns about McCain), but it is suppose to be a challenge to those that care about life and think it’s alright to support Clinton and Obama.