On Abortion

Although several other concerns related to the country's disastrous financial situation and government's overreach should be the major considerations in the upcoming election, the pro-choice vs the pro-life debate weighs heavily on a large percentage of the population. This blogger believes that government has no business promoting or especially financing abortion. But the question still remains as to what degree if any government should restrict it.


Playing the Devil's Advocate with tongue in cheek, I once suggested that the Law should exempt what I called 'Murder of First Blood'. The idea was that if parents wanted to terminate their children, the state would stay out of the problem. The thinking went along the lines that if parents were deranged enough to kill their offspring, then the world would be better off to rid the gene pool of their genes. Although the premise is flawed for a number of reasons, it serves to shed some light on the subject of abortion.


Arguments for 'pro-choice' are primarily concerned with women's rights to control their own bodies, not only for their health concerns but as a measure of their freedom. With the exception of some religious fundamentalists, most people are agreeable to abortions when the woman's health is at risk, and also when a pregnancy results from rape.


On the 'pro-life' side, the argument is pretty much centered on the question of whether or not the fetus is to be accorded the full rights of a human. The religious couch their position in the dogma that a soul is created at conception, but to enact law based on this belief violates at least the spirit of our Constitution. On the other hand, however, biologically a fertilized egg (human of course, not chicken etc.) has a full chromosome complement of the species, and therefore is, strictly speaking, a human. Not being a lawyer I am not certain, but I suspect that this does not in and of itself confer any specific legal rights or protections, but it does underscore the problem of defining when such rights and protections begin.


If we adopt the 'Murder of First Blood' idea outlined above, the problem goes away in part, but not completely. Currently, the doctor performing the abortion is 'killer', even though the mother (and presumably the father) has given permission. But even my off-the-wall 'First Blood' suggestion does NOT exempt anyone other than the parents. In this case, any abortion with the intent of destroying the fetus by the doctor is presumably a homicide on his part. The procedure of 'partial birth abortion' is the most blatant case of this. The doctor is killing a human, no matter what spin you try to put on it. However, the 'First Blood' principle would allow the doctor to deliver the baby, and THEN present it to the mother. If she can then kill the infant she holds, it's her business. In fact, 'First Blood' would allow her to delay the decision to the day the little terror breaks up her prized china, but I digress.


In all seriousness, however, I hold that a reasonable compromise position may be suggested by the above. It should never be the intent of the medical profession to kill a human, whether it is called abortion or euthanasia. In the abortion case, if a woman desires that her pregnancy be terminated, she should be able to have the procedure performed by competent medical personnel. However, the medical community should be legally charged with making every reasonable attempt to preserve the fetus, not destroy it. Since viability of a premature fetus before the third trimester is unlikely, most (but not necessarily all) earlier abortions would result in the demise of the fetus in spite of reasonable attempts to save it. On the other hand, late term abortions would have the same chance of surviving as similar preemies. The advantage of this approach is that there is no artificial cutoff time or event. The fetus would survive or die on its own.


This suggestion probably will not suit either extreme of the political spectrum, but it does accomplish two things. It recognizes the right of the woman (with the approval of her husband, if married), to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, and it recognizes the rights of the unborn as humans, but not as parasites. It further gets the medical profession out of the business of murder.
marcus.everett@citlink.net