Empty Cribs - Forty Years of Abortion Complacency - Part II

In Part I of this topic, I concluded that life begins at conception.  Part II builds on that premise.  It surprises many people when I tell them that I am actually very “pro-choice".  I believe a woman has the choice of when and with whom she will have sex.  Once a child has been conceived, however, any choice regarding birth is a choice concerning the deliberate killing of a human being.  At that point, there is really no moral choice at all.  Conception, in a moral sense, automatically implies birth for cultures who believe that killing a human is wrong.  This is why teaching our children a proper sexual morality is so important.  This is why we need to teach our culture that stable, committed relationships (e.g. marriage) are needed for child rearing.  Sexual morality, marriage and child bearing are inseparably bound together in a culture that realizes life starts at conception.

Few would argue that abortion is a positive thing.  Many admit that in addition to ending a child's life, abortion harms the mother in many ways.  It harms our nation as well.  The United States might not be facing a Social Security crisis if we had another fifty-five million working citizens to support it.  More and more Americans realize that science is redefining the start of life (see January 14, 2013 edition of Time magazine), pointing to conception as the only sensible beginning.  We know that abortion is not optimal at best and may be horribly wrong at worst.

So why does anyone support abortion?  I am convinced that support for abortion betrays the desire to engage in sex without consequences.  Men and women want an escape hatch in the event of trouble.  They want the pleasure without the responsibility of sex.  At its core, privilege without responsibility is what abortion is all about.  Whether from a reluctant one-time mistake or a lifestyle of unconcerned irresponsibility, the vast majority of individuals who choose abortion are trying to wipe out the negative consequences of a conscious decision they made to have sex.

Empty Cribs - Forty Years of Abortion Complacency - Part I

I remember the first real conversation I ever had with anyone outside my family on the topic of abortion.  In a high school study-hall discussion, a teacher stated, “I know what I would do if my teenage daughter came home pregnant.  I would not let her ruin her life.”  I respected this teacher, and it really made me think about this topic on a different level.  Was abortion sometimes the best decision?  Even as an impressionable sixteen-year-old, something really nagged at me about that teacher's statement.

Fast forward nine years to 1989.  By then my views were fully formed.  As I was preparing to teach a church group of college students for a “Sanctity of Life Sunday”,  I learned a staggering fact:  twenty million babies had been aborted (at that time) since the decision in Roe V. Wade.  Since 1989, another thirty-five million babies have gone to their deaths through abortion.  Though I have always been straightforward with my views on abortion, it does not feel as if I have done very much these last twenty-four years to change this national tragedy.