The subject of abortion concerns the most personal decision any woman has to make, and it also involves two other lives, a father and a child. Due to the very nature of this action, it is no surprise that abortion is the most emotional domestic issue in America. Prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, abortions were a matter of state law, and in most cases, hard to have. The Roe decision however, changed all that. Now the issue has expanded into many different avenues of our culture with many different interpretations of exactly what we should be doing about it. To be sure, pro-choice defenders believe that the decision of a woman in conjunction with her doctor is the only relevant consideration. How a father might feel is not deemed as important, and the potential future life of the child is equally dismissed.
Prior to 1973, abortions could be had in cases of rape or incest, or even a serious threat to the health of the mother, but again, these were hard to have. It appears however, that feminists of the sixties wanted unlimited access to abortions, at any time for any reason, and so the case wound up before the Supreme Court. The Roe v. Wade decision established abortion as a personal right of free choice, and it has remained so ever since. Numerous groups and organizations disagreed with the courts ruling claiming it creates a right where none existed in the Constitution, and the battle began.
A number of periphery aspects of the abortion debate have aroused great passions on both sides, and pro-choice advocates have fought back angrily. For example, some have proposed that young girls under the age of 16 be required to notify their parents. It is proclaimed that such youngsters cannot get an ear pierced without parental approval, so why not in this case. The pro-choice folks see this as an incremental infringement on the right to an abortion and have rigidly opposed this common sense idea, even if provision is made in case of abusive parents who might threaten the young girl. The debate has gotten so fierce that pro-choice advocates do not want pregnant women to even receive counselling for other options such as adoption. This hard approach against life is difficult to understand. The original Roe decision was expected to occur only in the first trimester of pregnancy, but over time it has expanded until it reached the ultimate point, commonly known as partial-birth abortion.
A few states tried to ban this gruesome practice but they were turned back by the Federal courts because they did not account for a situation that might endanger the life of the mother. President Bill Clinton had twice vetoed congressional measures to ban this procedure, and it did not become law until it was signed by President Bush in 2003. The inevitable court challenge finally came to a conclusion last week as the Supreme Court upheld the law as Constitutional. Despite all the rhetoric surrounding this ruling, the court in no way eliminated a woman's right to an abortion. It only made illegal this terrible practice whereby a child is partially delivered alive, and then killed.
So what can or should we do about abortion? To begin with, I believe that abortion should never have been made into a Constitutional right. That is the essence of what we can or should do. This court decision upholding the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act is actually the first step to restoring some Constitutional credibility to acts of congress which reflect the will of the people. A President cannot by decree stop abortions, but he should be a leader in the debate and present a moral challenge to the nation to live up to its highest ideals of protecting the innocent. With modern techniques now available, it has become increasingly clear how human we are as early as 17 weeks. No mother can deny the feeling of a child in her womb, how it moves and reacts. Ultimately, the idea that we would allow a doctor to partially deliver a child only to then kill it is insane.
In cases of rape or incest however, or in a situtaion where a woman is truly in danger of losing her life, abortion should be allowed. All other cases really revolve around the fact that many abortions are performed solely as a method of birth control. I feel if a woman does not want to have children, then don't get pregnant; especially if unmarried. Unfortunately, the immoral trends in today's society found in our movies, songs, art, and even education, have led to abortion as birth control or for any reason whatsoever.
Perhaps in the future, a congress with true moral courage, and a nation returned to true moral values might yet find that abortion outside of a very narrow few sets of circumstances is wrong. The law could be passed and congress could put such a measure beyond the ability of the Supreme Court to change that law, but it is going to take the will of our people to make it happen. If the congress does not act in that matter, Roe v. Wade can only be reversed if the court itself decides its own earlier ruling was erroneous and returns the decision making to the states, or if an effort is made for a Constitutional amendment, which is probably the least likely thing to happen.
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