Abortion Reply 3

From Charles W Leach

Life: the first inalienable right. You talk about abortion being about rights. ???

You wrote that abortion may be justified in certain cases i.e. when the mother's life is at stake. Imagine that there is a mother and her one-year-old child and one will die no matter what, but someone has the right to choose who dies. How can he/she choose between two lives. I don't see how someone could believe that they have the right to make that decision, yet you seem to think it perfectly sensible that in the case of an unborn child, the mother's life is more valued. Does age make so much of a difference in the value of someone's life. I am a teenager. Is my life of less value than an adult's? How can a matter of months make so much of a difference? How can you judge when that "tissue" becomes a person and do you have the authority to decide when life should be given or withheld when you cannot answer that.

In the situation you mentioned in your email, I believe it is the right of the Mother to choose either her life or that of the unborn child. If I were the husband, I’m afraid I would choose my wife’s life over that of the child and I would encourage her to make the same decision. Why? Because I’m selfish and would prefer to save the live I know rather than the life that might be.

Abortion is about individual rights not the right of government or an organization to dictate the conditions of an abortion. The choice should be left to the Mother and where possible the Father. These are the two people that have the most to gain or lose if an abortion is performed.

Abortion isn’t about the value or worth of a life, it is about personal development through responsible decisions. While I do consider the Mother a living entity, I don’t consider the fetus as such until it can live outside the womb without unnatural assistance. If it is an either/or choice then someone must make that decision. Who is better qualified than the person or persons that will be most affected by that decision?

Abortion is also about personal responsibility. If the Mother is below the age of consent, she should be given assistance in making the decision. If her parents aren’t available then both sides of the abortion question should be presented and all options explained.

Abortion is a serious issue but is abortion worse than having an unwanted child and then abusing that child? Is allowing a child to slowly starve to death worse than if that fetus had been aborted?

Life presents tough questions, allowing some one else to be responsible for the answers to those questions doesn’t promote maturity. Maturity and adulthood are a process of living with one’s decisions and trying to avoid repeating the harmful and unpleasant ones. Abortion is but one difficult decision in this process of life called living.