‘So I’m not sure about when life begins but I can tell you this: I wholehearedly support a woman’s right to choose.”

Ms. Wallis makes her point well with regards to labels and terminology with regards to the abortion issue - but, like most with her position, she doesn’t come out and say that she desires a woman the ‘right to choose an abortion’ - it’s always phrased ‘right to choose’- and then stops.

Rarely do I see in print, or hear, a proponent of legalized abortion literally using the phrase ‘right to choose an abortion.’

My own view? I think internally, because of God’s imprint of on us and our intrinsic knowledge of right and wrong, people literally find it challenging to admit that the ‘choice’ is the taking of innocent human life.

Ms. Wallis, if life is about choice, should a man have the choice to rape a woman? That is a choice. Life is not about freedom of choice, but the freedom to chose to do the right and moral thing.

Kim:
I think I sense exactly where you are. It is a dilemma when an issue that in one’s own mind, is not black and white, is treated by the most vocal groups as black and white. Most of the time I feel that I have no voice in this.
The abortion issue equivalent of the famous ‘you are either with us or with the terrorist’!
No rational discussion would be [possible in that atmosphere no matter how many ‘first amendments’ we have.
.

To A CENTRIST:

Life IS about choice. If a man chooses to commit a crime such as rape, the he will pay the consequences for breaking the law. Should a woman who is raped and becomes pregnant not have the choice to have an abortion?

A woman choosing to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is not illegal. It is not a crime, regardless of one’s moral code. And, you say “Life is not about freedom of choice, but the freedom to choose…….”. We may not agree with one’s choices, but thank god we have the freedom to decide for ourselves.

To Khaled:

Thanks for getting my point. There aren’t many issues that are black and white. And I agree that it is extremely difficult to have a rational discussion with someone who doesn’t see the gray.

I’m sorry but this IS a black and white issue. Either you believe in the sanctity of life or you don’t. You have chosen an arbitrary date for the beginning of life. As a mother you knew very well that there was life growing inside you at the very moment you learned you were pregnant. How can you say that snuffing out that life is a legitimate choice? Call it what it is: murder.

No, you approve of the killing of unborn children. That makes you pro-abortion period. How sad for you that you want to justify such evil thoughts with the user-friendly label of “pro choice”.

Unfortunately, my experience in this blogspace is that the avowed conservatives, as a group, aren’t very good at admitting that the gray areas exist. I’ve found that to be true in the real world, as well. I don’t know why that is.

As I’ve said many times, I think there is a common cause that everyone could agree to, at least in principle: The goal needs to be to decrease the demand for abortion. I’ve always felt that the tough cases need to be left to those directly involved. The common cases need to be seen as situations that were completely preventable in the first place.

Exactly where is the “gray area” between life and death? Ms. Wallace, as a mother you knew that there was a new life growing inside your body the moment you discovered you were pregnant. Yet you say you’re not sure when life begins.

Snuffing out an unborn human life isn’t a “choice”. It’s murder, plain and simple. You may think you can rationalize it by giving it a user-friendly name like “pro-choice” but unless you oppose all killing of the unborn, you ARE pro-abortion.

hs writes, ‘my experience…is that the conservatives, as a group, aren’t very good at admitting that the grey areas exist. I’ve found that to be true in the real world, as. I don’t know why that is.’

Please expand on this. I’m sincerely interested in knowing what you think are these ‘gray areas.’

Mike: I used to be vehemently anti-abortion, as you are. Permit me to share a true story that pushed me firmly to the position I hold today: that truly elective abortion can and should be eliminated by eliminating the demand (there are lots better ways to prevent a child from being born). However, there are a relatively small number of hard cases that need the option, and the choice to exercise that option must be left to the individuals involved.

Here’s the story:

I knew a couple some years ago, when we were all members of an independent, fundamentalist church where abortion was frequently (with loud amen’s) preached against. This couple had been through a number of miscarriages, and when she got pregnant, an early test showed that her baby would be a ‘brain stem’ baby, and would probably not survive outside the womb for more than a few hours. As they struggled their way through this, on top of the tragedy of carrying a child that would not survive, they had to deal with many people who immediately shunned them when they did not reject out of hand the doctor’s recommendation that she have an abortion. She eventually did carry the child to near-term, gave birth, and the baby died within hours.

The church’s response was, in my opinion, totally wrong. The treated this young couple like pariahs because they openly considered an abortion as an easier alternative to what happened. Even worse, there were a few who got all holier than thou and stated that if they had just had enough faith, the baby would have been born healthy. Where was the compassion? Where was the Christian Love? Shortly after this, this couple left that church where they were no longer welcome.

What would YOU say, Mike, to someone in this dilemma? I know exactly what I would say: “I care about you. I will sit with you when you make this decision, and I will support you either way.”

I agree with hs, however, that isn’t really what is happening in our society and that is now how “legal” abortion came about. Planned Parenthood began as a way to rid the country of too many black babies being born out of wedlock that our society couldn’t afford. Unfortunately, if abortion was only used in extreme situations, I could understand that. However, it is used instead, and don’t any of you deny it, to terminate inconvenient pregnancies by men/women who “forgot” to use birth control. They CHOSE not to use protection, get pregnant, and now want to get rid of the “mistake” like it is not even a life.

I have walked in those shoes and chose life and I am glad I did. I feel badly for those women who casually choose to terminate their pregnancies and then later regret their mistake and have to live with the fact that they killed their babies the rest of their lives. That is a great burden to allow someone at a difficult time in their lives to make such a drastic decision that they will inevitably regret later. Perhaps if an abortion wasn’t so easy to obtain, they would be more careful in using their birth control.

A CENTRIST: I’ve said several times recently what my ‘Pro-choice’ position IS. I’m waiting for someone from the “pro-life” side to acknowledge it, and to recognize my effort to reach out in a concrete way: we should agree on one point: There are way, way too many abortions performed for birth control purposes (some 90%, depending on the stats you read). The goal for all interested people would be to eliminate the DEMAND. This will require the moral conservatives to admit that there are a lot of people having sex together who have no business bringing a baby into the world. How do we encourage them from making a baby? That statement includes a lot of middle to upper class professionals who are more involved in a career than they are in wanting children.

John (9): What I mean by that statement is that many conservatives have this attitude, belief, call it what you like, that suggests that their thinking is the only way to think. That if I disagree with you, then I am somehow morally defective, or something like that.

Add to it the tendency by many self-affirmed conservatives in this blogspace who are more willing to attack the character of a person than actually respond to the point that is made. For example, when I write that I believe that abortion should be legal for the extraordinary situations (see my example in 10), and that the place that the work is required is eliminating the demand: I get tarred with a brush that suggests that I’m in favor of partial birth abortion (I am not). Many conservatives see the fence sitters who can see the point on both sides of an argument as weak. I see that as strength: willingness to try to understand the other’s point is so critical.

hs,

The story you relate is sad indeed, but in no way does it justify abortion. In fact, it does just the opposite. If abortion wasn’t an option, the couple wouldn’t have had to agonize over such a difficult decision. They wouldn’t have had to suffer the abuse they received from a few members of your church.

But, the couple made the right decision. They let God decide whether the child would live or die. The fact that the so-called Christians in your church chose to act as they did is disgraceful. I’m glad they left and I hope they found a more charitable community to turn to.

Meanwhile, the availability of legal abortion continues to encourage some members of our society, encouraged by our friends in Hollywood, to live a promiscuous lifestyle knowing that “birth control after the fact” is just a phone call away.

If you haven’t already, you should see the movie “Juno”.

‘The goal for all interested people would be to eliminate the DEMAND. This will require the moral conservatives to admit that there are a lot of people having sex together who have no business bringing a baby into the world. How do we encourage them from making a baby?’

That is easy. You teach people that:

a.) YOU are infinitely, remarkably valuable and important in God’s sight.
b.) God designed the sexual relationship to be between a man and a woman in a committed, marital relationship - for life.
c.) Sexual intercourse is the physical ‘glue’ between the man and the woman in the physical relationship. It’s the physical expression of that union - again, by God’s design.
c.) The physical anatomy between the man and woman (and the union between the two) is obvious.
d.) God clearly indicates that any sexual relationship outside of that union is morally wrong - whether pre-marital (fornication), while married (adultery), or homosexual.

As a ‘moral conservative,’ I believe the above whole-heartedly. I, of course, didn’t make any of this up; in fact, my thoughts or feelings are pretty irrelevant to it.

Is it hard to do? Is it hard to live this way?

Yes - particularly in today’s climate where virtually EVERY SINGLE media outlet preaches the opposite, along with - sad to say - many school systems. Our young aren’t receiving this information and, by default, listen to the gospel of popular culture in all of its many forms - all with a bent on pushing people into illicit sexual activity and robbing them of the sacredness that God designed the sexual relationship to be.

What have been the ramifications of this - just over the last forty-plus years? Millions of abortions, sexually transmitted diseases (now possessed by one in four of EVERY American female teenager with 50% of EVERY black teenage American female in that equation); broken hearts; real, genuine guilt (because that’s how we’re made); shame, etc….

It’s mind-numbingly sad and tragic.

If people are presented the TRUTH, they can - and, more than likely, will - behave accordingly. Instead, they are presented falsehoods with the lie that there are no real consequences - and that’s sad…

Ms. Wallis indicates that ‘Judaism tells me that life begins at birth,’ but then goes on to say that she felt that ‘life sooner.’

My guess is that the Judaism that Ms. Wallis adheres to is Reformed; I would doubt that it would be considered Conservative or Orthodox. The Psalms (a Jewish text) plainly states that we were formed ‘in our mother’s womb’ - describing life.

If, indeed, life begins at birth, then, logically, we could - and should - be able to do with it what we wish prior to this ‘pre-life’ entering the birth canal…

…and if that’s the case, I can’t for the life of me figure out why this ‘pre-life’ can be destroyed one second before birth - but I can be charged with murder if I destroy it ONE SECOND after birth.

John,
All thats great if you belive in God………………….some people don’t so why should those people adhear to your set of rules/beliefs?

John, (15) all well and good. What, then, do you say to the young couple that says that they don’t care that it’s immoral, they’re going to do it anyway. Will you take the next step and allow them access to birth control, and teach them how to use it?

Mike: It’s really easy to proclaim what God’s will is in someone else’s life when you don’t have to live it. In the case I cited, there was no good outcome possible. The question was really twofold: One, which was the lesser of two evils? Abort a child that cannot survive, or carry to term and go through the stress of giving birth to watch the child die anyway? Second part of the question: we have a crisis of faith here on top of it all. It raises the biggest mystery question of all: “WHY?”

Sometimes we have to get down in the mud and wrestle with our faith. When we do, we almost always go away, like Jacob, limping.

hs (17) ,

If this young couple has made up their mind that they ‘are going to do it anyway,’ my presumption is that they have access to birth control at every pharmacy or family planning clinic in town - and certainly don’t need my personal instruction.

My concern is their heart - and the truth; the truth that God wants the best for them, that anybody’s who’s ever waited for marriage has never regretted it, that they can go into that union with a clean conscience, no emotional scars and a peace of mind.

I would respect them enough to share the truth; if they disregard the truth, there isn’t much more I can do…

I go in with the attitude that they HAVEN’T heard the truth - since it’s never presented to them via situation comedies, MTV, popular music, teen movies - and on and on.

All that’s told to them these days are lies - plain and simple…

Fertility clinics artificially produce babies at the expense of discarded embryos. Are the resultant babies as innocent as the embryos or are they complices in the left-over embro destruction (murder)? Evidence of endeavor is evidence of life. An embro is trying to grow. A new-born is trying to do much more. The first “test tube” baby is thirty years old, is married and has a son of her own. Obviously, she has done much more than physically grown.

In war, we routinely kill people - even innocent ones - so that others might live. For the same reason, we kill criminals. Are not fertility clinics doing the same thing? Who ever is quilty of eventual distruction of embryos, can not it be said their guilt is tempered by the lives that were spared? To those who see abortion as a “black and white” issue, what shall be done now to those petri dish conceived people who apparently are accomplices to murder?

For arguments sake, what is G-ds or Jesus Christ’s role in a miscarriage? It seems like we are just looking to point a finger anywhere we can. Why would G-d put all these obstacles in the way of man? Do you ever think he is just laughing at all of us, I can picture it now, him looking down on all of us and laughing because we bought everything he ever said. I don’t think answers such as the ability to overcome, or perseverance to become a better person should be involvled, thats too easy of an answer. Think outside the box. A little about myself so you know where I am coming from: I am a jew who never beleived in religeon, I look at different religeons, from Mormans to Christianity, and growing up I always just wanted to start my own. Mainly cause I am a huge capitalist and John Smith made it work, so why can’t I?? Furthermore, my belief is, religeon is an excuse and has become so overdone that the government soon will not even be accepting it as true. Nobody is perfect, nobody ever will be. Science is the only thing that will ever be perfect. I beleive in a higher being, b/c deep down I want to, not because anyone ever told me to. Yes there are stats and phyics and books that can tell you exactly how everything happens in the world. Its all calculated using numbers. I feel like I am going all over with my points, but the gist of it is. How can one live by rules goverened by people who have made the same mistakes as everyone else? Furthermore, A Centrist: that comment you made is asinine. “Planned Parenthood began as a way to rid the country of too many black babies being born out of wedlock that our society couldn’t afford.” You have got to be kidding me. I am not one to truly judge people b/c everyone makes mistakes, and truly they are innocuous faults that just makes an individual genuine. I hope your thoughts Centrist are not so close minded in the future b.c. I know plenty of white people who have had abortions.