Thursday, February 14, 2008

Can't We Have Abortion AND Honesty?

Obama said, “I don’t know anyone who is pro-abortion.” And Clinton describes abortion as a “tragedy.”

I don’t get it. Why is it a tragedy? If the pre-born child is nothing but a mass of cells, if it is not a human being, then why is killing it a tragedy? So what if the parts being ripped out are arms and legs. So what if the stuff being sucked out of the partially delivered head is a human brain. If it’s not a person, a child, a baby, a human being that's being killed then there should be nothing troubling about abortion. If what is growing in the mother’s womb is not of any value, then why bother cheering a decline in the number of abortions being performed?

One of the most troubling parts of the abortion issue, for me, is that we accept abortion based upon a colossal lie that is so ridiculous, no one really believes it. Why is that? Why do we do that? Why, for example couldn't a woman be allowed to say, “I accept that this is a little girl growing within me, but I simply cannot handle a pregnancy at this time in my life. I cannot allow this little girl to grow to term and then let someone adopt her and love her and raise her. The issues are simply too complex and too painful for me to go through with this pregnancy. I need to terminate the life of this child and I need to do it as soon as possible.”

What would be wrong with that?

Sure honesty can sometimes be difficult. Sure it’s sometimes painful. But isn’t honesty better than pretending to be something that we’re not? After all, isn’t that what terrorists and murderers do before they kill someone? Don’t they lie to themselves and dehumanise the one about to be killed?

I’m not saying that abortion should be made illegal or that women who kill their pre-born child should be punished. Lord knows they’re in enough turmoil already without adding further shame and torment upon them. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be safe places to perform these operations. If the majority of people want that to be the way our society functions then so be it. But surely we should do these things based upon reality, based upon honesty and not upon delusion or outright lies.