Saying What Must Be Said on Abortion

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May 16, 2022

For over a week now, our country has been tossed asunder once again by the abortion issue because Justice Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health was leaked and published in Politico. We knew the day was coming when the Supreme Court would issue its decision, but the leak has hastened the debate, as well as being a surprise attack on the integrity of the Court and the sanctity of our nation’s constitutional rule of law. We still don’t know whether riots, protests, and doxing conservative justices can alter the Court’s tentative decision.

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We have been subjected to yet another unsolicited primer in the abortion debate from both sides. However, much has been left unsaid or deftly side-stepped. That’s because too much of the abortion question addresses the end of a baby’s life, not the beginning. Addressing those topics is critical to having a fully informed position.

According to the most recent data reported to the CDC, over 629,000 abortions took place in 2019. Over 63 million babies have been aborted in the last 50 years.

Obviously, the first step to ending abortion is to prevent unwanted pregnancies, which requires accepting personal responsibility. The most effective preventative is abstinence. One cannot argue that abstinence is not 100% effective; it works every time it is employed.

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If not abstinence, there are condoms for men and birth control pills, implants, or other devices for women. The bottom line here is that the best way to deal with an unwanted pregnancy is to not get pregnant, precluding the need for an abortion.

If a woman does not want to get pregnant, or if a man does not want his hookup, lover, or girlfriend to get pregnant, then that person can choose not to have sex in the first place or choose adequate preventative measures.

The pro-choice argument ignores prevention and kicks in only when prevention fails. It then relies solely on abortion as the only viable alternative. The argument goes this way: Society must accept whatever flows from an individual exercising his/her freedom, sexual intercourse must be allowed to occur between consenting adults and, if conception and an unwanted pregnancy result, it is a societal problem and not one of personal responsibility. Those pro-choice voices demand that their birth control, abortion, or pregnancy and delivery must come free of charge because, while it’s their choice and their pregnancy, it’s still our responsibility.

Image: Fetus statue from pxfuel.

The abortion industry has wrought needless carnage on America. As noted, above, in 2019, there were over 629,000 abortions. It is estimated there are between 1 million and 2 million couples in the United States who are waiting to adopt.

The pro-choice movement vociferously denounces adoption. The movement would rather an unborn child’s death than entertain the idea that a woman can choose not to terminate a pregnancy, choose life over an abortion, and choose to put the baby up for adoption.

It’s as stupefying as it is duplicitous. The “pro-choice” movement only wants a woman to make the choice that suits the movement.

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Among the most difficult aspects of dealing with the issue of abortion are those cases in which the life and future physical or mental health of the mother is at risk, in the cases of rape or incest, or in the case of severe birth defects. However, years’ worth of statistical analysis indicates that only around 3.5% of abortions are for these reasons.

At a minimum, it’s misleading, if not utterly dishonest. for the pro-choice movement to assert that approximately 3.5% of all abortions must be the deciding factor permitting all abortions. This narrow issue, though, is an excellent example of the benefit that would flow to the country if the abortion question were returned to the states and to the peoples’ directly elected state representatives. A compassionate society can deal more effectively with these difficult decisions closer to home.

But has Roe vs Wade empowered us to become a more compassionate society? This author would argue, “No.” Moreover, the statistics alone cannot provide the necessary insight into how abortion has coarsened the culture.

This past week’s hot takes and commentaries discussing how abortion has affected our relationships offer some sobering points of view (e.g., Why Are So Many Men Desperate To Kill Babies And Traumatize Women?). For women, “my body, my choice” and the exclusion of the father from any input (or responsibility) for the pregnancy have resulted in men’s disengaging from long-lasting relationships, along with the trend toward fatherless, single-mother households. The natural result of this trend is that, when men seek only the sexual “conquest,” and are allowed to engage in recreational sex free of consequences, women are exploited, to women’s and their children’s socio-economic disadvantage.

The dynamic that abortion introduces into our relationships has been corrosive, harming both sexes.

The one benefit of this cultural corrosion and coarsening of the culture is that the leftists are no longer hiding the truth about what abortion is:

There was once a fundamental understanding among people of goodwill that one’s rights extended only as far as and up to the point at which another’s rights extended. Are we no longer committed to the God-given and inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans? How can we, as free people claim that these are our national and individual rights while denying these same rights to those who do not have the power to speak for themselves?

Americans are rightly jealous guardians of the freedoms that were set forth in our Declaration of Independence as “inalienable” and “self-evident.”  But what about the right to life? In the abortion debate, the rights of the individual human life in the mother’s womb are completely denied.  So, who among us can honestly stand, proclaim, and affirm our “separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them,” while denying those same rights to another human life as if their personal choice and personal freedom supersede another’s right to life?

At what point do we as a nation recognize the personhood, and grant equal protection under the law to a human life, “unwanted” or not?

Consider the following admonitions, each from their respective sources:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams

“America is great because America is good. If America ever ceases to be good America will cease to be great.” Alexis de Tocqueville

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” Proverbs 14:34

There is no escaping the truth that abortion kills a human life. To avoid or deny that truth much has for too long gone unsaid. To our detriment and our everlasting shame, over 60 million unborn children have been slain, in an unholy sacrament on the altar of immoral license and in the name of personal freedom.

The loss of human capital, creativity, and achievement is incalculable. Our condemnation shall follow. Unless…

Dustan Ashe is a pen-name, the author’s “nom de guerre” in the culture war.

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