A Liberal Argument Against Abortion

[DL82]

It makes a lot of different to the woman who has to carry the fetus to term. Let me try to explain from personal experience. I had an abortion 23 or so years ago. I was very sick physically and I was severel depressed. I was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, BTW. It is time consuming and painful for me to go into the details that led to this terrible situation but what I want to convey to you is this: I was in no way physically or mentally prepared/able to carry that fetus to term. It is not unthinkable that suicide would have resulted. Had there been a way that I could have had the fetus removed and it could have been brought to term outside my body, that would have been the route I would have taken. As it was, I, as the born, fully developed being whose daily life was directly affected by the pregnancy and with the full knowledge of the challenge to my mental health and physical wellbeing, had to be the one to make the best choice I could at the time.

I think that most women who have abortions do so only after a great deal of soul searching. We don’t know the reasons or situations. Mental health is a big issue for me (I’ve been hospitalized for suicidal depression and treated for it w/o having to be hospitalized as well). IOW, it is so easy to say what others “should” do when we don’t know their struggles and desperation. I agree it should be a last resort, however, and should not be done lightly (some women probably do this since some men and women will abandon their child without a backward glance).

I feel for your difficult situation. If you go back to my original argument though, what I’m saying is we can never make the decision to abort a baby simply because it’s inconvenient, even gravely inconvenient. In your case, it seems quite possible that the psychological strain would have killed you AND your baby, and it seems unlikely that you were fully able to consent with a clear mind given your mental state at the time.

I’m not going to get into the whole question of whether it’s ever acceptable to take a life to save two, that’s just way too deep.

All the same, the liberal argument against abortion, I believe, is honest, because it acknowledges that the life of known persons has value and that the life of unborn potential persons also has value, and that the value of life itself cannot be compromised for the value of convenience.

 

[yellowbicycle]

DL82 - I see your point very clearly. If one side isn’t sure if it’s human, and the other side IS sure, well, you always err on the side of life.

I think about tragedies that occur - earthquakes, the twin towers collapsing, miners trapped in the mine and we ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS continue search and rescue LONG after we are certain the people would have run out of oxygen. Why? Because you must always err on the side of life. because your calculations might be wrong. because something might be going on in that mine, collapsed building, whatever, that you didn’t count on, so you must allow for that, and continue to search for a person long after common sense would tell you there’s no point in it.
I’m trying to remember now…after 9/11, how long did they continue to search for people as if they were still alive? A week, I believe? A week with little air and no food or water? We as a society could have saved ourselves alot of trouble if we had switched the type of search from one of finding living people to one of finding bodies if we had NOT erred on the side of human life, but somehow those people were worth saving.