A Woman's Right To Choose...For Whom? A Look At The Abortion Debate

The abortion debate is one of those social ethics type of topics that almost always has the potential to polarize people. Obviously, people have strong opinions either way and while there will never be consensus to this issue, there are some questions that I've always had to which I've never received a satisfactory answer from pro-choice advocates.

First, let's look at the semantics here - pro-choice. The obvious interpretation would be that it is a woman's right to choose what to do with her body, right? Well, I've always thought yes and no to this one. Yes, woman can do whatever they want to themselves...as long as it does not infringe on another person's liberty or life. Now, I know it's a slippery slope argument here that some may be surprised that I am taking. There are some things I actually am happy to let people wallow in, since they made their bed and should sleep in it. Am I sad that so many gays and drug users have AIDS? Nope. Should I feel sorry for the obese person who I almost always see at Marineland or Ontario Place who can barely walk around yet is puffing on a cigarette or stuffing themselves with fries or ice cream? Nope. Do I care if you choose to pierce your scrotum or tattoo your face? Nope. Do I agree with all these practices or lifestyle choices? Nope. Would I advise my children against doing such things - yup. But I recognize we all have free will and what you choose to do, you have to live with the consequences.

Where I draw the line is when what you do has an adverse effect on someone else, and particularly someone who does not have the capability to choose whether the action/decision is done to them. I find not a whole lot of difference in the abortion issue and the issue of euthanasia, particularly of elderly and or disabled people. The Robert Latimer case in Canada here provides a fine example of why our laws need to protect those who cannot speak for themselves - Latimer, a farmer (from Saskatchewan, I believe) murdered his 12-year-old daughter Tracy, who had severe cerebral palsy. He said he was doing her a favour by exposing her to lethal doses of carbon monoxide from his truck, thereby killing her - was he trying to save her, or save him the years of time that would be required to continually care for her, as well as her escalating medical bills? I don't have any sympathy for this guy and am saddened that only after around 12 years or so, he is out of jail. Do I think he is a cold blooded murderer? Maybe not in the classic sense of the word - but I still think he is a murderer nonetheless.

Relate this back to abortion. You know, the one thing I find most distressing about this debate is the amount of feminists who claim that it's a woman's rights issue. It's not - it's a human rights issue. They will say that abortion should be allowed in the event of a rape or incest or when the mother's life is at stake. Even well respected people like Billy Graham are sympathetic to this position, and to a degree, I am as well. However, let's look at the stats here - the majority of abortions performed are for unwanted pregnancies, not out of medical necessity. I suspect if we were to take the abortionists concerns to the letter and institute an abortion law that applies only to exceptional-case scenarios as described above, they still wouldn't be happy - so I think it's a smokescreen for the feminists to be able to have unfettered access to abortions on demand.

Whatever happened to taking responsibility for one's actions? Yeah, it really sucks that some teenager got some other teenager pregnant, but that is why sex should be reserved for marriage when both husband and wife in a committed marriage relationship can and do have the means to provide the support and love for that child in the environment designed for children to be welcomed. Of course, today's liberal educators are not seeing this as an option and instead are making condoms available en masse. They've obviously never had sex with a condom on, since if you have, you'll know that you may as well not have sex at all, rather than with a condom - I won't bother getting into the reasons here. But that's beside the point.

There is an argument that making abortion illegal or making the procedure hard to access will only drive girls and women to attempt dangerous and life-threatening home made abortions. They may die as a result. That seems to be a major driving force in arguments made in favour of the government of Canada giving Henry Morgentaler, the infamous Canadian abortion doctor, an Order of Canada, among other things. The argument goes that he actually helped save the lives of many girls and women who may have otherwise have died on the table of an underground abortion procedure. To this I say...so what? If they die, they die. That's their choice that they are making to engage in risky self-surgery. Plus, I'm not so sure that people can look at it this way, since I would argue that there is a null-gain here, since by supposedly saving the woman's life, you end up terminating the baby's. I'm not sure that that's any better - I know it's not. Now, you may say that's cruel of me to say all this, but again, we need to get people to take responsibility for their actions here, and in general, abortions on demand due to an "oops, unprotected sex" or "oops, condom breaking" are both hardly good reasons to kill an innocent life. I just don't get why the government is expected to be on the hook for terminating a life due to your your bad lifestyle choice. Just like anything else - if you decide to put a loaded gun to your head and pull the trigger, you have no one to blame but yourself for your actions. If you want to kill yourself, go ahead. It'll really suck for the family and friends you will leave behind, but that is ultimately your choice. But if you try to shoot another person before committing suicide, that's when the issue becomes something else and intervention is necessary. You may brand me as a neo-libertarian for such a philosophy, but it is what it is.

The case of the mother's health being threatened or in the case of rape, I don't really have a formulated thought-out response to these scenarios - that's my honest comment - but even with rape, I would be in favour of government assistance in bringing the baby to term, since there's lot of people unable to have babies who are eager to adopt. With the mother's life at risk, that's a trickier situation since there's time sensitivity to it and also there are a lot more complex issues present - but again, I haven't thought that exact scenario through yet, so it would be foolhardy for me to provide any form of feedback on that.

I have a baby daughter, so I've obviously had the opportunity to think through some of these issues with her in mind, so that it's not a matter of, "well, this is what I think that others should do, but I'd do differently myself." Just like with my son, I will impart to her the need to take responsibility to decisions in her life when she grows up. I cannot and will not think for her, but as her Dad, I will impart to her traditional and Biblical moral and ethical values. Can I guarantee that she won't make mistakes - of course I can't - and I guarantee that she will make mistakes. But hopefully through our teaching, if she ever gets into a situation where she gets pregnant before being married, that she will take the responsibility to keep the baby and I will of course support her in any case to do so. This, to me, does not suppress any rights she has as a woman, but imparts on her the value of life and that innocent life needs to be protected.

Now, one can ask me how as a vociferously pro-life person, can I support the death penalty, but be rabidly against abortion. Some have suggested that this is a hard question to answer, but I don't think it is. For one, we are talking about two things here - an innocent person who cannot speak for themselves and has not broken any laws, is compared to a person who is old enough to commit such a serious crime that they have forfeited their right to live, based on the collective societal decision to institute a punishment that will end their life. One is about murdering an innocent life; the other is enacting a societally agreed upon punishment for an action. They are totally different.