Thursday, April 9, 2009

Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, or Pro-Reason?

DURING A HEATED debate in class today on the subject of abortion, I started to think about my own opinions.  Obviously there are many extenuating circumstances having to do with abortion, but I have come to believe that with the options available to us, the issue of abortion has become moot.  Medicine has advanced to allow for contraceptive and block fertilization immediately following intercourse (of course the latter is to be used in extreme circumstances only).*  The justification behind allowing these medicines and condemning abortion is the intent; medicines prevent, and abortion ends what has already begun (this is a euphemism of the termination of a fetus' development if that is at all possible).  This is the stance the Coptic Church has taken, but in the wisdom of the Church, every case is handled individually by the woman's father of confession.

Concerning the debate on when a fetus can be considered a human, I don't buy into the viability argument.  Many of the elderly aren't viable in the sense that they cannot live without life support; are they not human?  Many are also without a functioning heart; I assume they are not human as well?  A sound argument should be without exception, so it must be that those arguments are simply justification to meet a person's personal agenda.  A human is a human, even if he/she/it is composed of only one cell.  

God has a hand in everything.  If He wills a child to be born, it will happen.  This is why He said "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you."  To me, it is arrogant to say a mother has authority over the life of her child, for only God has that authority to determine which lives should begin and end.  It is not part of a woman's body either; this seems silly to me because how can a part of a body become its own body?  A woman cannot regenerate as other simple organisms do (duh);  therefore a woman begets a child, a women doesn't simply break off a fetus.  Besides, a man contributes to the child's cell development, so the child doesn't completely belong to the woman.  The baby is God's child before it is any woman's, therefore we must use reason before allowing such a travesty to become commonplace.

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4 comments:

Unknown said...

You wrote this well. Even though I disagree with you on some points, thanks for the post because it helps me understand where you come from. I really like this blog and will continue to read it.

Anonymous said...

Did you seriously use the word "moot?"

Jake said...

Anonymous-

Yes, I hear it so much from the law students at work and I want to be cool like them.

Anonymous said...

Your coolness is moot.