By now, most of you that are even somewhat in-tune with what is going on in the world know that South Dakota just got a lot closer to passing a very restrictive law banning abortion. Let me start by saying that I don’t like abortion, never have, never will. However, with that said, I don’t want to see it go away. At least not without some serious changes in the way we care for people in our society. The worst part about this proposed legislation is that those backing it don’t seriously think it will go anywhere, but rather that they want it to be a direct attack on Roe v. Wade. Seriously! This legislation was written in order to be challenged and subsequently sent to the Supreme Court in an attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Shakespeare’s Sister has a pretty good post that is her own take on a post by Lance Mannion.
In the comments section of that post, commenter Kathy says this:
if a woman wants to continue her pregnancy, she should have easy access to affordable prenatal care, and she should be assured that her job is safe, that she can find decent child care if needed, and that there is a safety net in place that will provide for her and her child if that becomes necessary.
Her comment really gets to what SHOULD be the heart of the whole debate. If you truly are pro-life, then you should campaign, protest, petition, whatever for all aspects of life including any assistance needed pre-birth, during birth, and any and all after care needed for the mother. Sadly, we don’t see that.
What has always upset me about the whole abortion debate is that most anti-choice advocates fail to realize the health, financial, emotional, and even societal repercussions of an unwanted pregnancy. Religious anti-choice advocates try to frame the pro-choice crowd as irresponsible, i.e. if they were responsible and abstained from sex, unwanted pregnancies wouldn’t happen. While I agree that abstaining from sex is the only guarantee to keep from getting pregnant or any type of sexually transmitted disease, I believe it is also a pipe-dream to think that young people aren’t going to experiment with sex. Since we already know (and hopefully agree on) that, wouldn’t it be wise to promote not just abstinence, but contraception as well? The problem is that there just isn’t any compromise from the anti-choice crowd.
