Abortions

 

In general, I don’t approve of abortions, I suppose, but there are many qualifiers and the problem essentially becomes one of where to draw the line.  I suppose if I pinned myself down I’d have to say that, for me, it would be the point at which the fetus had become a baby, which I would further define as the point at which it could survive with appropriate medical care if the mother died.  It isn’t an easy point to locate…how young can a “premature baby” (not a fetus) be and still survive?  I’m struggling, I admit, but independent survival seems to me to be the break-over point.

 

This makes partial-birth abortions, where the fully-developed baby is actually in the process of being born, murder.  But abortions by “morning after” pills and the rough horseback rides that young ladies used to take in the first weeks after discovering their unwanted pregnancy, are not.

 

The two ends of the spectrum seem pretty clear to me, but I have a hard time telling where the line in the middle gets drawn.

 

And, yeah, I know, I’ll catch flak from both sides on this one.

 

I have more problem with the people who argue it is the woman’s right to choose.  Why, since there were two parties involved?  The woman argues that because it’s her body carrying the young life, she, like George Orwell’s pig, is equal but with more rights than other equals.  The 14^th Amendment would appear to me to say otherwise.  Personally, since I don’t have a horse in this race, I’m not sure how much my opinion should count, anyhow.

 

Wouldn’t the point be one of obligation?  I mean, if the man has no obligation to support the child then he should likewise have no say.  But if has a lifetime obligation of support, but no say in the matter, that is quite a lot like the same reason the American colonists fought the revolution.