Choice?

Perhaps no other debate in the last 20 years has generated as much rhetoric, as much slogan shouting, as much intentional misdirection as the abortion debate. For most the issue is already decided. Both those who favor the free availability of abortion, and those who would prohibit it entirely, are certain they are, without any doubt, completely and blatantly in the right. Why then do I undertake to further obfuscate the debate? Who could I hope to win over to my side? By shear weight of my argument probably no one. Especially when you consider the publication limits of my medium. Yet in the hope that one person may be swayed, here goes.

Perhaps we could start by clearing up some terms. There are those who would prohibit or greatly restrict abortions. They are then, anti abortion. To say they are pro life only ads a misleading title to an obvious position. There are also those who feel that abortions should be generally available to anyone who wants one. Though they might not choose an abortion for themselves they generally favor the availability of abortions. Though they are often called pro choice the choice they want available is abortion. They are pro abortion. The inutero by-product of pregnancy is not what most people think of as a baby. It is clearly in a different stage of development. On the other hand, to simply call it a pregnancy by-product does not differentiate between that tissue which after a live birth is referred to as a baby and the placenta or other tissues which are discarded as waste by those on either side of the debate. The fetus is the bit of tissue that the debate centers on.

The whole debate is in fact somewhat moot if the centrality of the fetus is overlooked. While one side cries "murder" the other side cries "totalitarian". Yet both sides appeal ( as Sackcloth asserts in his article ) to a sense of right and wrong which is more similar than different. Both sides feel that the taking of an innocent human life is wrong. Both sides feel that the state should not interfere in maters as personal as procreation except to prevent some great evil. ( Over population choking the life out of our planet or the less dramatic case of preventing inbreeding to decrease the likelihood of birth defects caused by defective recessive genes being examples that come to mind. ) If in fact the fetus is simply unwanted human tissue not unlike a wart or a tumor or, as in my case, excess fat cells, then the premisses of both sides would allow that rights as important as control over our own reproductive processes far outweigh any right my wart might have to exist. On the other hand, the taking of an individual human life is sanctioned only under the greatest compunction by those on either side of the debate. If the fetus is an individual human being it's death is a far greater tragedy than someone else's temporary loss of reproductive freedom. If
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This is the beginning of the debate. It is also the end of this article. Look into it yourself. The data on what a fetus is can be readily found.