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Serious Issues and Breakfast Food
Nov. 5th, 2008 03:03 amBreaking yet another journal silence here, and this one's a big one. The idea was to write this post tomorrow, as I really shouldn't be up, but it's three AM and this stuff has been rattling about in my brain for over an hour now, trying to get its points in order. As I expect you all know, the United States finally (!) held its election today (yesterday?) and I clearly have too many American friends, because it's affected my daily life already. :-P
Various things came up while chatting in the aftermath, among them one of those sorts of lovely controversial topics that I'd really prefer to shy away from: abortion. Now, if you're like me and would rather not get into it, or if you think yourself likely to turn redder than is healthy and/or otherwise snap, please feel free to skip over this post and go look at some of the neat pictures or amusing things from earlier in my journal. If for some reason you feel an interest in what I have to say, and can confine yourself to one or two line comments or in some other fashion hang on to the modes of polite discourse and sweet reason, by all means read on.
Warnings: I'll admit right now that I've done little to no research, and have no practical knowledge of the existing abortion laws in either Canada or the USA. Everything in here is simply musing I've done and what I think about things. I'll attempt not to generalise, but I very much suspect some will squeak through.
The first point I'd like to bring up that bugs me is how it manages to be such a controversial issue in the first place. It always seems to come up around elections, and most of the rest of the time no one but extremists on either side or people actually dealing with it think about it at all. Or it's possible that's just me. At any rate, it isn't by any stretch a proper debate; both sides have positions and almost always seem to end up talking past each other to no effect. Just look at the camp names: 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life'. Now, nowhere in 'pro-choice' does it say anything about 'anti-life' or 'pro-death'. 'Pro-life' may perhaps be 'anti-choice' if you define that particular choice very specifically, but it's certainly not 'anti-will' or 'pro-mindless-sheepdom'. They aren't arguing the same point. It's like one person going "porridge and orange juice is a good breakfast" and a second guy coming up and saying "I disagree; strawberry jam is good on toast"--and then making a major political froufrah out of it. They aren't exclusive; I could easily eat both porridge and strawberry toast in the same week, even the same meal.
In fact, that seems to be where I find myself in the whole debate, relatively pointless though I may think it is, and I sometimes wonder how many others might be the same. I'm a pro-lifer sandwiched in a pro-choice worldview, or to put it another way, I'm pro-choice by principle, but I believe the right choice is not having an abortion. I believe very strongly in free will; that we as a species were designed to make choices, make our own way, and in so doing make more of ourselves. Sometimes that doesn't turn out so well. I could certainly wish that no-one had ever heard of or invented abortion, but now that it's happened, and it is known, someone, somewhere is going to give it a shot, even if they have no idea what they're really doing. One of the points I brought up earlier was to say that in my world abortion would only apply when it's certain the mother would die without it and unlikely the child would live. Even there that has to be a family choice, as that mother may well choose to give her life in the hope of increasing her child's slim chance, but it is, regardless, their choice to make. Thinking about it further tonight, the sort of situation I was envisioning was almost-full-term grave complications, which might well be a situation for C-section, not abortion. Nevertheless, just because I can't think of a medical situation that fits those perameters doesn't mean such a thing wouldn't exist. Life is a very precious thing. No child's life should be worth less than it's mother's; yet neither should a mother's life be worth less than that of her child. Every family is different, and so too are the situations with in them to be ataken into account.
I would much prefer there be no abortion. But I also very much doubt, as I said, that knowing the possibility someone won't try it. Granting that, I would much prefer it only be tried by licensed, well-trained doctors with a weath of information of the other options possible on hand, access to the adoption and foster-care systems for those who make that choice, and a mandate to discuss those options, help any process along, and provide safe, sterilised, adjudged medically necessary abortions as a last resort to those who choose them.
Does that make me pro-life, or pro-choice? I really have no idea. But there I am.
Various things came up while chatting in the aftermath, among them one of those sorts of lovely controversial topics that I'd really prefer to shy away from: abortion. Now, if you're like me and would rather not get into it, or if you think yourself likely to turn redder than is healthy and/or otherwise snap, please feel free to skip over this post and go look at some of the neat pictures or amusing things from earlier in my journal. If for some reason you feel an interest in what I have to say, and can confine yourself to one or two line comments or in some other fashion hang on to the modes of polite discourse and sweet reason, by all means read on.
Warnings: I'll admit right now that I've done little to no research, and have no practical knowledge of the existing abortion laws in either Canada or the USA. Everything in here is simply musing I've done and what I think about things. I'll attempt not to generalise, but I very much suspect some will squeak through.
The first point I'd like to bring up that bugs me is how it manages to be such a controversial issue in the first place. It always seems to come up around elections, and most of the rest of the time no one but extremists on either side or people actually dealing with it think about it at all. Or it's possible that's just me. At any rate, it isn't by any stretch a proper debate; both sides have positions and almost always seem to end up talking past each other to no effect. Just look at the camp names: 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life'. Now, nowhere in 'pro-choice' does it say anything about 'anti-life' or 'pro-death'. 'Pro-life' may perhaps be 'anti-choice' if you define that particular choice very specifically, but it's certainly not 'anti-will' or 'pro-mindless-sheepdom'. They aren't arguing the same point. It's like one person going "porridge and orange juice is a good breakfast" and a second guy coming up and saying "I disagree; strawberry jam is good on toast"--and then making a major political froufrah out of it. They aren't exclusive; I could easily eat both porridge and strawberry toast in the same week, even the same meal.
In fact, that seems to be where I find myself in the whole debate, relatively pointless though I may think it is, and I sometimes wonder how many others might be the same. I'm a pro-lifer sandwiched in a pro-choice worldview, or to put it another way, I'm pro-choice by principle, but I believe the right choice is not having an abortion. I believe very strongly in free will; that we as a species were designed to make choices, make our own way, and in so doing make more of ourselves. Sometimes that doesn't turn out so well. I could certainly wish that no-one had ever heard of or invented abortion, but now that it's happened, and it is known, someone, somewhere is going to give it a shot, even if they have no idea what they're really doing. One of the points I brought up earlier was to say that in my world abortion would only apply when it's certain the mother would die without it and unlikely the child would live. Even there that has to be a family choice, as that mother may well choose to give her life in the hope of increasing her child's slim chance, but it is, regardless, their choice to make. Thinking about it further tonight, the sort of situation I was envisioning was almost-full-term grave complications, which might well be a situation for C-section, not abortion. Nevertheless, just because I can't think of a medical situation that fits those perameters doesn't mean such a thing wouldn't exist. Life is a very precious thing. No child's life should be worth less than it's mother's; yet neither should a mother's life be worth less than that of her child. Every family is different, and so too are the situations with in them to be ataken into account.
I would much prefer there be no abortion. But I also very much doubt, as I said, that knowing the possibility someone won't try it. Granting that, I would much prefer it only be tried by licensed, well-trained doctors with a weath of information of the other options possible on hand, access to the adoption and foster-care systems for those who make that choice, and a mandate to discuss those options, help any process along, and provide safe, sterilised, adjudged medically necessary abortions as a last resort to those who choose them.
Does that make me pro-life, or pro-choice? I really have no idea. But there I am.
