Sick to my Stomach

I recently saw a photo that made me want to run to the bathroom and hurl. It showed a four-part cutaway of a woman's stomach showing a 23-week-old fetus. In each of the four images it shows a "long toothed clamp" (to use the image's highly technical term) to rip the fetus apart in segments. It even shows an inset image of the 70mm arm that had just been ripped out. The comment below the image unsurprisingly says "Say NO to " ABORTION ".....!!!" I don't know why they put quotations around abortion but that is what it said. I am against abortion but still believe in its legalization for a few reasons. 


First of all, the whole pro-life/pro-choice labels are absurd. I'm pro-life, meaning I believe in the preservation of life. And I'm pro-choice, meaning that I believe in the preservation of individual liberty. The names are designed to be inflammatory since no one ever wants to be considered anti-life or anti-choice. That would just be ridiculous.


Next, I find abortion to be morally reprehensible. I believe that when you make the choice to have sex (and only when you make the choice of your own free will) then you are choosing to accept the consequences. One of those consequences, is pregnancy. Even if you are on the pill and he uses a condom there is a statistical chance that you could still become pregnant. In a way you are taking your life into your own hands when you choose to have sex because you do not have absolute control over if you get pregnant or not. It's like anything in life. When you drive or ride in a car you have a 1 in 84 chance of dying. Like to swim in the ocean? Well you have a 1 in 60,453 chance of getting killed by a shark. When using condoms correctly you have a 1% chance of getting pregnant. That means every time you have sex you are spinning the roulette wheel and have a 1 in 100 chance of getting pregnant. That risk is yours to take. If you want a 0 chance of getting pregnant, don't have sex.


That being said, I cannot condone government legislation preventing a woman's right to an abortion, within reason. There are so many circumstances where, until we experience them ourselves, we cannot fathom the choices that come from them. Rape, incest, and medical necessity are the commonly touted ones in this argument but there are many more. Extreme poverty? Choosing to bring a child into the world when you know you do not have the means to feed or cloth that child is a heavy decision. And what about abuse? A 16-year-old who goes through abuse at home and gets pregnant is unlikely to have a nurturing environment not only while she is pregnant but after the baby is born as well. This is also true for grown women in abusive relationships. I would rather see them get out of the situation, but the choice to bring a new life into that same situation is a very heavy one. I could go on for a very long time but each individual circumstance speaks to one main theme, compassion. You never know a man, or woman, until you've walked a mile in their shoes. 


The "within reason" that I add to the above paragraph is because of the question of late term abortions. The actual cut off point is debatable since the most preterm baby ever to survive was only 22 weeks into a usually 40 week gestation. In my view, and I am not certain this is always the case, an abortion should be preformed before the fetus is viable which occurs sometime between 22 and 24 weeks. Since most women learn they are pregnant sometime between 4 and 8 weeks after conception this would still leave at least 14 weeks, over 3 months, to make the decision and actually abort the pregnancy. If a termination becomes medically necessary after this point I'd say it is fairly clear that the parent(s) have decided to keep the baby and should be considering a preterm delivery to preserve the baby's life as well as the mother.


A secondary reason I disapprove of legislation against abortion, particularly at the federal level, is that it was never a power that was meant to be given to the government. We let them tell us we can't have an abortion and the next thing we know they'll be telling us we can't have fast food (oh wait, they've already started doing that by banning trans-fats). We must always be circumspect in the powers we give our government because it has been proven, time and again, that when we give an inch they take a mile. 


My final argument against banning abortion is a simple history lesson. The first lesson is on prohibition. Did it stop drinking in the United States? Far from it. Next, think of abortion in the 60/70s, and probably even earlier than that. Did abortion cease to exist because it was illegal? No. Back alley abortions, dangerous medications, and inflicting personal injury to induce a miscarriage still took place. Did it deter some? Probably. But many abortions still occurred and often cost the lives and health of the mother as well.


Returning to the original picture I mentioned, this is the sort of sick propaganda that easily enrages people and makes them think "we can't let this happen" without considering the full scope of the question. The image is of a 23-week-old fetus and, as I mentioned earlier, the earliest reported birth where the baby survived was at 22 weeks. This image also depicts the fetus as baby pink (which is not the color babies are at that stage) and sucking its thumb. All these little signals to make us see the fetus as a living, breathing baby and incite more horror when the baby is ripped apart. That gut wrenching reaction works, my own reaction is testament, but there is a deeper, more complicated conversation that must be had before a decision is come to.