Something serious this time

I have had the following on my mind for some time, and I hope that everyone who reads this will give it the thought and attention it deserves.

Take a long look at this photograph. I didn't take the picture, but whoever did had a true gift. I share it today because I want to talk about abortion. There are many people for whom this is a really hot button, and while I do not apologize for pushing that button, I would like to offer a new perspective on the issue.

I believe, as most people do, in the freedom of choice. I have the right to choose what to do and not do with my body. If I want to color my hair a flaming red - and once I actually did do that - I can. If I want to pierce my ears - which I have done twice - I can. I can pierce any part of my body I want and I can get tattoos if I so desire. If I choose to not shave my legs or arms, I don't have to. That is my choice. I can eat whatever I like in whatever amount that I like, knowing that for every action I do, there is a consequence. I can choose to do whatever I would like to do in my life providing it does not infringe on the rights of someone else. I have the right to own a gun, but I do not have the right to use it against someone else simply because I don't like him/her, or because I don't approve of the lifestyle that person chooses to live. I have the right to drink myself silly but I do not have the right to drive afterward because I am impaired and thus endangering the safety and the lives of others.

As a woman, I have the right to be pregnant or not pregnant. If I want to be pregnant, then I have the right to do whatever is appropriate to bear a child. If I do not want to be pregnant, I need to do whatever is appropriate to ensure that I do not get into a compromising situation that would result in a pregnancy that I don't want. That, dear ones, is called responsibility. It is my responsibility to make the right choices while taking into consideration the rights of other people. If one doesn't wish to get pregnant, then use protection, or better still - keep your slacks zipped!

If I get pregnant when I don't want to be, I have to understand that I have choices. I can choose to give birth and raise a child I wasn't expecting, I can give the child up for adoption, or I can allow (or some might say "force") the father to take the child and raise him or her. Abortion is NOT an option. Many women would argue that since I have to right to do whatever I want to with my own body, I do have that option. But note, that element of choice, that right to choose my next step, does not include infringing on someone else's rights. That unborn child is just that - a child. I am not allowed to take someone else's life away with a weapon, so why would I be allowed to murder an unborn child?! That child never asked to be created, yet he or she has, in fact, been created. The fact that I may not want a baby is no excuse to kill that child and it never will be.

I have been accused of being naive, selfish, and "out of touch" with reality. I don't need to get into all of the specifics of trying to "prove" that an embryo or fetus isn't a living thing. The fact is that the taking of any human life is wrong. And a fetus is a life, viable or not.

What confuses me further is that if a woman spontaneously aborts a fetus, she is said to have miscarried a baby. If she chooses to purposefully abort, the fetus wasn't a child. Someone is going to have to explain that one to me because it makes no sense. You cannot have it both ways - either it's a child or it isn't.

Life is life, regardless of what stage we witness at any given time. And it is a gift from God, whoever and whatever we know God to be. Life's too precious and too rare to treat it so blithely. Last week I attended two funerals on the same day, only a couple of hours apart, and the experience more or less knocked me on my kiester. Both were for women but one was for a woman who was only a few years older than me, and she had rarely been ill. Within four months of a devestating diagnosis, her family and friends were burying her. At the wake there were photos of her with her family and in one, there was a photo of her with her mother, grandmother and her own little girl. If she had chosen not to have that baby, how different would the world be today?

Look again at the photograph at the beginning of this entry. How could anyone want to snuff out the life of that precious child?