My Evolution on Abortion

The term du jour in the debate about same-sex marriage is "evolution".  Every politician who has changed his or her view describes it as an evolution.  Apparently, in this context "evolution" is code for meaning the evolved person's changed opinion is based on his or her true feelings as opposed to political expediency.  Any politician with a functioning cerebral cortex can see that being against same-sex marriage will soon squarely put him or her on the wrong side of history.  As a result, I might be a tad skeptical as who is really evolving or who is just doing good politics.

I am going to talk about an evolution I have had, meaning I really feel this way (or so I say, I could be posturing for my future political career...).  So here it is.

I am not a big believer in sudden life changing events.  I guess if I won the lotto, it might change my financial lot in life, but it wouldn't really change how I see the world (I hope).

That being said, when I viewed our to-be born child's ultra sound it was pretty profound.  You can call it whatever you want, but it is life, or more specifically human life. 

I have never held adamant opinions on the never-ending abortion debate, because I viewed it as something other people dealt with.  Since, I viewed it as something other people deal with, I naturally gravitated towards the so-called "pro-choice" position.

However, seeing the ultrasound picture has definitely changed my view on this.  Again, you can call abortion whatever you want, but it is terminating a human life.  There is really no other way to describe the procedure.

This doesn't necessarily make put me in the hardcore "pro-life" camp.  The pro-life argument is something to the effect it is wrong to kill an innocent life.  This argument assumes intentionally killing an innocent person is always wrong.  It is not, or at least society has said it is not.

The obvious example is war.  In war a lot of people die.  We like to tell ourselves that is only Taliban and al Queda bad guys who got what they deserved.  This is patently false.  The average soldier in an any Army is just some poor guy doing what he is told.  He isn't guilty of anything aside from being in the wrong place, at the wrong time.  Nor is the civilian killed in what is Orwellian described as "collateral damage".

For better or worse, war is sometimes necessary.  I suppose if one was 100% pro-life on abortion, a consistent position for that person would be almost complete pacifism on war.  I am by no means a pacifist.

So where does that leave me?  I can't in good conscience say that any abortion for any reason is right or should be legal.  That being said, much like war, there is some sort of balancing act between the rights of the mother and the child, or put it another way, if I believe that are certain reasons that justify the killing of innocents in war, it follows there may be certain reasons for justifying an abortion.

I think my rationalization is that we as a society should look seriously as to why certain women have abortions.  The obvious reason is unwanted pregnancy.  If we were to take steps to eliminate this i.e. access to birth control, better education of women it would help a lot.  For those women who do find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy, our society should provide them with resources to deal with it, medical care, counseling, adoption alternatives, economic incentives etc...

Beyond that it is complicated as to how much choice a woman should have.   I do not claim to have the answer, except that our society should create conditions where women with an unwanted pregnancy should not feel like an abortion is their only option.

I'll leave it with a quote from General Robert E. Lee -

"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we should grow too fond it".