ABORTION

The question as to whether abortion should be legal or whether abortion should be abolished might better be answered by asking at what stage of development an abortion would be depriving a sentient-enough individual of their life and whether the procedure used would be cruel or inhumane. Any exception to the former would have to pass muster as to its justification (saving the life of the mother or a merciful euthanasia akin for our beloved pets). For any pregnancy there will be no exceptions to the latter concerns of humaneness and cruelty.

In cases of rape we must keep in mind too that any in-womb, sentient-enough individual should not suffer execution for the crimes of the father. So any such abortion performed for rape must occur before the sentient-enough threshold. For cases of severe deformities leading to long-suffering and low quality of life our humane concerns are the overall emphasis. Accordingly we should research and measure the quality of life lived by those similarly afflicted including those who have gratefully beaten the odds along with the advances of medicine when considering abortion in such cases and weighing the differences.

It would seem that an early conglomeration of cells having their own unique DNA while technically the beginning of a new life, is yet still only a potential to eventually be a sentient-enough individual. This illustrates how a sentient person consists of their physical body and the resultant consciousness of their brain activity. Nevertheless for a baby born without a full brain or someone consigned to a vegetative state, we still reserve to them certain rights and dignities in those cases. We would reproach those who would physically abuse or perform heinous acts on their bodies like sadistic mutilations or gory dissections and macabre experiments. Just because there is no perceiving personality to receive pain of the flesh, it is not license to perform such horrendous actions. Accordingly, only precise and warranted procedures would be allowed. By this precedent, we would restrict the methods of pregnancy termination even for the more fully formed who are not yet (sentient-enough) individuals to the more sedate and precise methods like local application of opiates to euthanize as opposed to dismemberment by suction, instruments or the use of corrosive abortifacients. This is similar to our stance that death by dehydration or starvation for those in a vegetative state is inhumane.

Ironically if our abortion policy was based merely on religious conclusions, we would advocate mandatory abortion on all pregnancies to guarantee that our posterity would not end up in the tormenting fires of eternal hell that traditional interpretation of scripture indicates for most of humanity due to getting seduced by this world. Note that there are some scriptural references used to indicate when life has begun but they are more by inference and they can be interpreted instead as mere amazements at the handiwork and insight of the Creator. On the other hand, if we were to base our policy on the ideas of current progressive or feminist thought and culture, abortion would become even more prevalent, unregulated, inhumane and unsafe even to the point of infanticide as some have recently advocated. Even some regulatory efforts of late for sanitary oversight have been assailed by abortion groups as undue impediments to abortion access. This from the likes of types who have minimized risk of diseases and gang infiltration at our borders, preached citizenship for invaders; advocate civil protections and privileges for enemy combatants, domestic terrorists and criminals. Their ranks exhibit the audacity of some who promote the more absurd animal rights and chastise about animal cruelty yet the inhumane practices of late-term and partial-birth abortions seem to be of no real concern. Notice too the high incidence of abortion performed on African Americans whom the leftist ranks claim stewardship for.

Now Planned Parenthood tells us:

For Planned Parenthood to state an affirmation of a "law" that came into being merely through the majority opinion or re-interpretation (as opposed to sound interpretation) in a court outside of a law-making body indicates how weak and off-base Roe v. Wade is in its constitutional justifications. PP also states:

This shows how over time the left's rhetoric about their abortion policies maintaining rarity doesn't hold much water. Another source quotes them as saying as high as 1 in 3 women. PP states as well:

Ironic that leftists generally deny such right of decision when it comes to school choice or when an individual chooses their own health plan and doctor as Obamacare demonstrably denied in the end. They have also subsequently floated plans to abolish private health insurance. We here reject PP and the various leftist justifications on abortion.

Instead we should base our policy on what is known and on what we must admit we do not know. Consider the twin mystery. If a single fertilized egg is left on its own it can become a certain individual after many cell divisions. But what if early enough in the process we separate the cell groups? We would end up with twins but which of those twins would have been the same, original, self-aware individual had the separation not been performed? We also ask whether if any of the resulting self-aware individuals are same to the original who would have resulted from the absence of our separation of cell groups. This deepens our question - when does life or sentient individuality begin? Nonetheless, we would seek to preserve their humane treatment applicable at whatever stage according to their level of development.

Meanwhile, supporters of Roe v. Wade are coming to terms that it is not the sound and stable ruling the media and leftist groups tout it as and it will eventually collapse. Its weak and absurd argument based on privacy has no real bearing and the 14th Amendment it latches too is actually more of an argument to protect the rights of an unborn individual. Did you know the woman who was 'Roe' in the case actually decided to come out against abortion later in her life? Nevertheless, portrayal of overturning Roe v. Wade as a virtual abolishment of abortion is unfounded as various states have demonstrated by passing side-stepping legislation should that ever be the case. Our republic's federalist structure limits the national powers to the fewer truly national issues and encourages more governance at state and local levels. Here it's best for the states to regulate abortion as opposed to a one-size-fits-all, judicial-activist imposed ruling over the nation with all its inherent strife.

While abortion opponents do focus on overturning Roe v. Wade to at least eliminate a judicial-activist national mandate invoking abortion on demand, they may want to also consider overturning the Doe v. Bolton case which when combined with Roe eliminated the more reasonable restrictions on abortion within Roe itself that could have kept abortion more rare. Efforts like Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey should also be utilized in order to return more sway to states' rights on regulating abortion.

Abortions as currently practiced are not without risk such as infections, scar tissue, hemorrhages, hormonal imbalance, psychological problems (guilt) plus difficulty getting pregnant again or with the ability to carry the next fetus full term. With the cost and risks of these abortions, it should not be a common procedure recommended for women especially as a substitute for birth control. Such risks and their methods should be avoided with abortion being practiced at best rarely. More humane, sanitary and less intrusive methods should be sought wherever possible and adequately regulated toward these goals. Taking these facts into consideration, abortion just isn't something that sounds very appealing - actually gruesome in some cases - and the natural process of pregnancy should be the recommended health and medical ideal for women as their primary function.

Synthesizing all these arguments funnels down to having an overall position that prohibits all inhumane abortion procedures and limits latter-term abortion to special circumstances like saving the life of the mother. Abortion should not be a form of de facto birth control and a mainstream rite of passage as the cultural leftists have made it. With proper sex education and all the access to birth control today, abortion should be quite rare. Women should not be counseled to accept an invasive surgical procedure when unnecessary as a normal way to practice reproductive health. Their first choice should be vigilance where those who are sexually active frequently monitor themselves for pregnancy and adhere to a strict regimen of contraception. Ideally this should be done for all females reaching age of possible fertilization in order to protect against unplanned pregnancy in cases of rape. (If medical advances allow we encourage a reversible pregnancy 'vaccine' having no risks or complications and/or unobtrusive devices-implants that monitor for pregnancy.) Surgical abortion should be seen as an unhealthy, expensive and unfortunate last resort for an unplanned pregnancy and not to be arrived at by negligence. To further discourage abortion whenever there is contraceptive failure there should be pregnancy support or sponsored adoptions in order to keep women experiencing financial distress from choosing abortion. While progressives are asking for free college, student loan forgiveness, free health care, living wages, guaranteed income and the like they should also be advocating for a truly pro-woman & motherhood stance via pregnancy and adoption underwritings. We interject that a more efficient approach to such ends would be through private charities and co-ops like group homes for unwed mothers and private underwriters for unplanned pregnancies and open adoptions.

Realizing that those who believe that life begins at conception are only part of our demographic, it is more pragmatic to tacitly (or grudgingly) allow some degree of safe, legal and HUMANE abortion that's orchestrated mostly to the early stages and kept truly rare. We consider such a release valve in order to prevent any large black-market underground that would perform unregulated, inhumane or dangerous abortions especially after having had years of highly accessible, high volume abortion with wide acceptance.