Thursday, January 4, 2007

The Abortion Lie

The big lie about abortion is the false dilemma we are posed that assumes that one is either Pro-Choice or Pro-Life. This does not reflect either the reality of the situation or the opinions of the vast majority of voters. Relatively few of us fall either into the camp of those who believe that abortion should be prohibited in all cases, or that of those who believe that it should be allowed without regulation.

There few among us who would force a woman to carry a monster that had no chance of survival to term just to prevent an affront to their God. If anyone thinks they can justify forcing a woman to carry a fetus with acephalia, or cyclopea to term they are delusional. For examples of some of these defects look here http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/HumanBioogy/birth_defects.htm Tell me if you would force your daughter to carry one of these monsters to term. If the answer is no then you are not Pro-Life.

There are a slightly larger number of people (but still a tiny minority) who would resist any effort to regulate abortion in any way. Most of these people have fallen for the slippery slope fallacy. They believe any attempt at reasonable regulation is the foot in the door for prohibition. If you believe that any level of regulation is acceptable, parental notification for example or restrictions against aborting viable fetuses that could live if delivered at the time of the procedure, then you are not Pro-Choice.

Those of us that fall outside these tiny minorities want abortion to be available but with reasonable regulation. All other areas of our lives and health care are subject to regulation why should this one not be? There is only one answer; it is in the vested interest of the extremist and the politicians who count on their votes to prevent a reasonable debate about what sort of regulation is appropriate. This sort of false polarization around an issue that the majority agrees on does not serve us well it only serves those who would divide us rather than unite us. It serves those who would rather have a sound bite than a reasoned and reasonable answer.

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