Wednesday, September 24, 2008

A Solution

Ah, who am I kidding? I can’t really go too long with out talking to you about something.

So I’ll try to make everyone comfortable, let’s talk about abortion.

(Please try to read all the way through, if I anger anybody primarily, it may be remedied later in the article.)

I may have written about this before but I’ll reiterate, I’m pro-life- in the manner of consistent life: no death penalty, pro-gun control, and pacifism for everybody.

But when it comes to the issue of abortion I find myself on uneasy ground, namely, I don’t have a uterus and by the looks of it- never will. So who am I to judge a situation that I never was in or never will be in? And certainly in the case of rape or incest I don’t believe you should force a woman to bear that child, or if childbirth is even and option due to reasons of health. In either way it’s not an opinion that is easily defended, but let’s try to tackle it- shall we?

Let’s start with when life begins, normally one would say that either life begins at birth or at conception, I believe neither is completely true. If one would say that life begins at birth than one could argue, is the organism any less alive the day before the birth? Except for maybe slight stimulation and preparing of the corneas for their first burn, the organism is no less alive. But socially it is not yet human, we don’t hold funerals for a fetus that is a victim of miscarriage, we put an unborn child on our tax forms and we say things like “I have two children and one on the way.”, instead of saying that we have three children. As if there was some sort of journey that one would have to take in order to be alive.

Now most of you folks that read this would know that I’m biased, very biased. And an astounding liberal, some might say. But in this case I must say that either side will have to go through great social changes to ever be even remotely correct, or even rational. So, I’ll try to break it down.

Pro-Life: Adoption and counseling, the problem is that we’ve put ourselves into a situation where abortion may not be moral, but is necessary. In many situations women just aren’t fit mothers, and the adoption market is horrible. Children are pushed and pulled through foster homes and other housing facility in a society that appears to not care for them, because it believes that they will be unfit, ‘hooligans’, and ‘neredowells ‘. So, I believe that the best thing for someone in the pro-life movement to do, to make abortion less prevalent, is to adopt. If more people adopted rather than just raising your own genetic spawn, then the adoption market would become more open and foster homes would seem more like a terminal to a family rather than just a never ending chain of houses, no homes- houses.


Pro-Choice: Alright, the ball is in your court for now. Even I will call myself pro-choice on the subject of abortion. But I do ask that the Planned Parenthood put more of its attention to counseling, because, let’s face it- no one wants to have an abortion. In no situation is it an easy way out. Which is why I propose that the United States- in an effort to help those who will have a difficult time raising a child, an assistant parenting program, which would provide services to needy parents, somewhere along the lines of Toys for Tots, but will also provide a government run nanny service as well as state daycare and pre-school. This could be a joint effort between the Department of Health and Human Services as well as The Department of Education. I also ask that religious groups do the same to help cater to the needs of those seeking faith-based alternatives. I realize these are already in place but we need more.

Well that’s about as far as I’m going to go in this installment, but check in later for more.

Have a good one.
-Jake

1 comment:

Shadow's Keeper said...

Aah. A breath of fresh air: someone who tackles the problems of abortion without forcing their ideals upon others. I must admit, I haven't thought about adoption that much, but I like the idea. I knew some people on my street who lived with numerous foster families their whole life without permanence. Interesting viewpoint.