Abortion?

Abortion rights are Pro-life. They give a woman the right to control her own body, which is a part of her rights to her own freedom and life.

Those who seek abortion rights should not yield to the anti-abortionist terminology of ‘pro-life’ and ‘rights to life’. It is a woman’s right to her ‘own life’ that gives her the right to terminate her own pregnancy. Anti-abortionists will immediately say, ‘does she have the right to choose murder, because that is what abortion is?….My question, Is it?

If the fetus was a person then that may be so, but the fetus is not a person. The status of the embryo within the first 3 months is a basic issue. The embryo is clearly pre-human, and it is only the mystical notions of religious dogma that treats this group of cells as constituting a person. We should not confuse what is, with what could be. This embryo develops into a potential fetus, which develops in stages to be born an infant. At birth, it becomes an individual with the breath of life, and from this breath of life from a biblical perspective the infant becomes a 'living soul'.

It may surprise many Christians anti- abortionists to learn that abortion is not mentioned in the bible. The closest that the bible gets to it can be found in Exodus 21: 22 on, If a woman has an accidental miscarriage that may occur while men are fighting and the woman dies then the man responsible for her death must die also because he has committed murder. "Thou shalt give life for life". However if a miscarriage occurs and the woman is unharmed the man pays a fine only, as no life was lost. Note the miscarriage is not considered a 'life'.

During the first 3 months these indifferent embryo cells exist as part of a woman’s body, if we look as what it is and not what it might become we realise it is still primitive. To compare these cells as an infant is absurd, if we say these cells are an unborn child we could with equal logic call any adult person an undead corpse and bury him alive. These tiny masses of cells that exist are a part of a woman’s body, it is not a separately existing biologically formed organism, let alone a person. That which lives within the body of another has no rights against that of the host.

Rights belong only to individuals not to parts of individuals. It is after the birth of a child that the child can obtain rights. It is on this basis with a woman, that it becomes a woman’s right to do as she pleases on this issue. No other person including her husband has the right to dictate what she does with her own body. That is a fundamental principle of freedom. There are many legitimate reasons why a rational woman might have an abortion, accidental pregnancy, rape, birth defects, and danger to her own health. Abortions should remain private affairs as they often involve painful and difficult decisions.

Being a parent is a heavy responsibility financially, psychologically, and morally. To a woman who does not want it, it becomes a death sentence.

The religious anti-abortionist attitude is one where, the actual life of the mother is to be damned, They want the mother to give up her life, her liberty, and the pursuit of her own happiness.

Sentencing a woman to sacrifice her life to an embryo is not upholding the ‘right to life’. Anti-abortionists are not lovers of life, as they would have you believe, but lovers of tissue. The stand that they take seems to make them haters of human beings. To the anti abortionist I'll say this. If you don't approve of abortion then make sure you don't have one, but let others make up their own mind. I'll close with a question. Is the contraceptive pill a type of early abortion? Don't listen to what others say, check this one out for yourself.

Jim Lee.