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Before you read the rest of this, be aware that what I am saying is meant to apply to the overall act of abortion, not specific cases. In instances where the baby will have deformities, where the mother's life is in danger, or in cases of rape or incest. Nor I am justifying any of those. The arguements for and against abortion stand in all of these aforementioned cases, but in some of them other moral stands might be made on other moral grounds. What I am debating below is simple abortion-for-convenience.
Abortion is the killing of the Human Fetus. The Fetus is not an organ of the mother, or even a part of the mother. The embryo has 46 chromosomes, just like any other human being, and these are distinct from the mother's. It is a seperate, distinct creation. And there is no more jurisdiction for the termination of the fetus than there is of any other helpless living human being.
Abortion would not be legal today if it is wasn't for feminists' claim to the right for a women to do what they wish with their body and the right to be perfectly equal with men: If men don't have to have babies then women don't have to have babies. Feminists claim that all identity along gender (don't say sex) lines is socially constructed. So they say that society constructs the idea that women should bear babies. To see my complete "analysis" on feminism, click Here.
The feminists do not regard the humanity or life of the fetus as consequential. They believe the right to an abortion would still exist even if the fetus was completely human. One prominent feminist was at a lecture where the conservative lecturer suggested if feminists hypthetically accepted the fact that the fetus is completely human then they would accept abortion as murder and therefore wrong. The feminist angrily confronted the lecturer, saying it doesn't matter at all about the vitality or humanity of the fetus, just that the women has an inalienable right to an abortion. The justification for this right, and the constitutionality of it, have never once been coherently constructed for me personally.
This right to an abortion is never backed up by benefits other than equality with men. However, this equality is unfounded and egalitarian. Any rational observer could tell that men and women are fundamentally different in chemical makeup, thinking processes and appearance. Perhaps this is why Feminists have embraced the post-modernists standpoint of rationality being just another social construct by the powerful, who in feminist thinking are all men.
One argument of pro-abortionists is that in the early stages the embryo couldn't survive without the mother, or couldn't survive outside the mother. However, the Human Baby can't survive without its mother for years after its birth. Test tube babies have proven that babies do not need mothers at all, just that they are dependent on outside support. However this dependence is not producing people clamoring for the legalization of infanticide. If one accepts that the killing of babies and children and indeed any human is wrong, then rationally and scientifically then must accept abortion to be wrong as well.
Another argument used by the Pro-Choice movement is that the embryo isn't sentient or conscious during its first months of existence. However, this argument can also be applied to euthanasia. If you have an elderly person who is unconscious, is it morally right to terminate him? How about is it morally right to terminate him if you know that in nine months he will make a complete recovery and will live a full and productive life afterwards? I cannot accept this position and will be afraid of anyone who does.
Another argument used by the Pro-Choice movement is that an embryo doesn't look like a human. This is the unrational of all the defenses of abortion. If a person was horribly burned or maimed or mutilated and no longer looked like a human being, would it then be okay to kill that person based on his looks? Once again the argument made by the pro-choice movement justifies murder, and once again I cannot rationally accept such an argument.
Another argument that in my eye is very unrational is that the argument that the baby's life has no purpose because it is not valued by the mother. Should we then kill every infant born to an out-of-wedlock mother who abandons her baby? In one hypothetical situation, what would you do if you found a baby on your doorstep abandoned by it mother who obviously didn't value it? Would you coldly poison or dismember it? Or would you take it in, care for it and give it to the authorities who could give it up for adoption? Once again I believe the answer to this question is clear.
After the bush has been beat around, the only reason for abortion is convenience. Once again I am not referring to abortions due to deformity or the life of the mother or any other. I am refering to abortions for convenience. The mother in such an abortion does not want to go through with a pregnancy, and so opts for the easy way out. Such thinking legitimizes out-of-wedlock and illigitamate sex with a consequence free environment. The argument that abortion is simply another means of birth control is ridiculous. We live in a world of condoms, the pill and even now the morning-after pill. With the existence of all these "solutions" the need for abortion as birth control is absolved. Once again we see that the purpose of abortion is one of convenience, and convenience never made something moral.
Another argument is one coming first from feminists, as cited above, and now from many others, saying that the woman has the right to do whatever she wishes with her body. This argument, it must first be noted, never defends abortion as a good thing, but simply as a constitutional right. The same arguement is used to legitimize pornography, which is something Feminists are very unlikely to defend. However, as sick as it may be, pornography has a much stronger constitutional guarantee under free speach. Abortion, and Roe vs. Wade, are unconstitutional. Even the most liberal interpretation of the constitution cannot find any reference to or protection for abortion. You don't have the constitutional right to an abortion.
Another feminism-leaning argument is one that a woman who doesn't want to have a baby shouldn't be forced to carry it by males. This arguement does have weight in that the decision not to have an abortion shouldn't be a male one. The male is not the one having the abortion or the one who makes the decision. However, this leads no credence whatsoever to the morality of abortion. It just means that is should be women who are realizing this.
Another arguement is that the mother can't support the baby, or the mother doesn't have enough money, or doesn't know how to care for the baby. These all are indicators of an abortion for convenience. The option for the alternative of adoption is very real. It takes no continuing obligation once you give up a baby for adoption. This point, that of adoption, proves every abortion for convenience a false one, since the mother can just give up the baby for adoption.
Abortion has real-world consequences as well. The benefits its supporter's claimed would occur with its legalization haven't occured. The claim that women wouldn't have to go to backalley abortion practitioners, and would be much safer is bunk. The same arguement could be used to justify the legalization of drugs, saying that now users can go to clinics to get their drug intake and would no longer have to go to back-alley dealers and would be safer. In the modern era there are plentiful methods of prevention of pregnacy including abstinence. Using abortion as a birth-control method is a sign of laziness and promotes an atmoshpere of unsafe sex, where STDs claim millions of lives annually. If abortion isn't an issue, for example, couples may have protected sex instead of unprotected in an effort to avoid pregnancy. This same protection might save one of the two partners from a deadly disease. This is a significant advantage to banning abortions.
Another significant real-world negative impact on women is the fact that abortions can be psychologically very harmful to women afterwards. While this alone would not be a justification for overturning Roe vs. Wade or banning all abortion, it is a very significant and under-rated emotional trauma that many women suffer through. I will not go into details primarily because I have absolutely no experience in this matter. However, abortions that are rushed into in order to prevent embarrassment or for another reason can cause life-long harm and that is another reason why the non-beneficial right to an abortion is more harmful than helpful.
Even worse than just abortion as a practice is mid and late-term, particularly partial-birth, abortions. Once the fetus has developed a nervous system, it can feel pain as acutely as any other human being and doctors can tell the fetus is screaming, or at least is in amazing pain, during abortions. Late-term abortions are particularly gruesome. The fetus is delivered early, and the doctor punctures its brain. One question that is raised is what if the doctor fails to puncture the brain and drops the baby on the floor, with the baby surviving? This same fetus that was to aborted, excuse me, killed, is capable of surviving in an incubator/respirator. Does the mother have the right to then kill this baby? This is obviously infanticide, and just think if the operation had gone on as planned it would be perfectly "moral" according to pro-choicers. Late-term abortions are particularly awful, and I have no reservations at all about a ban on them, with the only condition being the life of the mother being n danger. If the mother wants to have an abortion for whatever reason, she is perfectly capable of doing so. However, once the fetus has full-human capabilities and functions, I view the act as infanticide and no worse than any other murder. Even in the case of rape, incest or deformity, by the time the fetus has developed to human-capabilities it shouldn't be aborted any more than a five-year old child who was born as the result of rape or incest or has deformities should be murdered. Any other possibility is dangerously close to the Nazi principle of a master race free from imperfections.
To summarize my abortion stance I would like to make the following clear. In my mind, every single abortion for convenience is morally wrong and equivelant with murder. I do not hold mothers who have had an abortion as murderers, since virtually always the mothers do not view it as abortion and as a result of popular culture do not view it as wrong. I do hold Society and feminists/ultra-liberals at fault for constructing this morally repugnant view. Abortions for other reasons, like rape or incest (which make up 1% of all abortions) or for the sake of the mothers life or the concerns about the infants condition (about 20% together of all abortions), need to be considered thoroughly and with every eventuality considered. However, except in the case of the mother's life being in danger, I consider every late-term and mid-term abortion as wrong. The only justification for these abortions is that women have an inherent reproductive right to their body. This does not hold in my mind.
To add a disclaimer to the above, I do not side idealogically with the majority of pro-lifers. I can think of no other issue Religous Right people and I agree with. I view the radicals who bomb abortion clinics and kill abortion doctors as murderers and monsters. I do not believe in advocating religion as the reason for banning abortion. Our country has always been and should always be a country without religious sectarian preferences. To force someone to not have an abortion because you believe a certain way religously, regardless of the religion of the women, is wrong. However, our nation respects laws against murder and euthanasia, and so our nation should respect laws against abortion. I respect greatly, however, the idea that the choice of an abortion is not one that should be legislated, and I agree with the fact that government cannot legislate morality. It may be the case that no law on abortion at all is acceptable, and that it should be a choice of the women. This may be, but I cannot accept it applying to partial-birth abortions in any case. In the end, I come to the conclusion that legislation in this case can help.
And just what would those laws be? Whatever the reason, I would not support a reversal of Roe vs. Wade and a jurisdiction over abortion in the domain of the states. Abortion is an issue that does not change regionally, it is the same in one state as in another. The consequences of varying state laws on parental consent of abortions have been seen already by teens driving to other states on their own to get an abortion. Whatever the end result is, I would recommend without reservation that this remain and continue forever as a uniform policy throughout the nation without variance from state to state. I would advocate a ban on partial-birth abortions without reservation. I would recommend a ban on all other late-term abortions except in the case of the mother's life being in danger. I would advocate a ban on mid-term abortions except in the case of the mother's life being in danger, certain deformities of the child, rape, or incest. After that is uncertain. I would draw the line at no abortions for convenience at all. However, abortion is a very devisive issue, with no reconciliation in sight. Acting rashly could prove to have unforseen consequences. Abortion is probably the most devisive issue in our nation today and the only factor keeping it from turning into an issue of the magnitude of slavery is the lack of regional dividing lines. If the west and east or north and south were to polarize along pro-abortion and anti-abortion issues, possibly by letting some states ban abortion and other states allow it, could have a devastating outcome. Realistically it is unlikely a large shift from the status quo is going to occur in the forseeable future, but that is no reason to stand still. Abortion is morally wrong and so demands action.