|
APRIL 28, 2004 – Pro-life.
Pro-choice.
These are the two terms of choice for
people debating the abortion issue. The "pro-choice" side doesn’t
want to seem actually pro-abortion, and the "pro-life" side doesn’t
like the prefix "anti."
That’s all fair and nice, but in
reality, the arguments being made today do not reflect the situation
as it has and would exist in reality if abortion were illegal, and
so these labels are inaccurately used and the case each side is
making is missing the most important point of all of this.
To put it simply, the "pro-choice" group
is supposed to actually be the "pro-life" group, while the
"pro-life" group is in reality the "pro-death" group.
Don’t worry, it isn’t as confusing as it
sounds.
Today you hear the speeches in favor of
"a woman’s right to choose," as you heard again and again this past
week during the March For Women’s Lives this past week. Senator
Barbara Boxer said, "We are pro-choice and we will never go back."
This, in fact, is the constant focus of
those who want to keep abortion legal, that it is a woman’s body and
she has a right to choose.
But the larger reality is the one that
the event’s titled addressed, "…Women’s Lives."
Being for legalized abortion is not a
question of whether or not you think women should have a right to
choose what to do with their own bodies. It is a much simpler
question: "Do you want dead 14 year old girls?"
Again and again the abortion debate gets
away from the only question that makes the debate worth having. To
be for legalized abortion is not to say a woman should have a
choice, it is to acknowledge that to many girls and women there is
no choice.
For the 14 year old girl who is carrying
the baby of the father who molested her, there may be no choice –
she is not going to carry that baby.
For the woman who was made pregnant by a
rapist, there may be no choice in her mind – she is not going to
carry that baby.
And even more, for many young girls who
were not victims of either of these crimes but who simply became
pregnant unintentionally, carrying the baby to term is not an option
they realistically will consider.
To keep abortion legal is to save the
life of a fourteen year old who lives in a very conservative
household and can’t bear to face her parents with the reality of her
pregnancy. And all debates and arguments and possibilities aside,
the simple reality is that if abortion becomes illegal, a number of
these girls will end up dead from suicide or back-alley butcher jobs
every year.
In my "pro-life" eyes, to lose even one
fourteen year old girl is one too many. We have far too many teen
suicides as it is. If keeping abortion legal will save the life of
even one girl, of even one woman, than it must remain legal.
The issue is not choice. The issue is
not who has control over a woman’s body. The issue plain and simple
is not any hypothetical or philosophical or legalistic opinion, it
is a simple, absolute truth based on reality: to make abortion
illegal is to directly cause a number of girls and women to die
horrible deaths each and every year – deaths that will be prevented
if abortion remains legal.
Add to this the women for who late-term
abortions are required due to threats to their health. They have no
choice. It is about these women living or dying, not about whims or
opinions or control.
The people who believe life begins at
conception can have their argument and call themselves "pro-life,"
but those in favor of keeping abortion legal need to get back on
track and keep front and center the simple reality of why abortion
must be kept legal and stop talking about "choice" or "women’s right
to control…" or any such nonsense.
The question here is life or death for
young girls and women. And to stand up in defense of them is to be
"pro-life," not pro-choice. | 
