If abortion is outlawed altogether, then women who become pregnant will be forced by the government to remain pregnant. It is a true statement, and it is the entire issue that bothers me in this whole discussion.
I am fully willing to conceed that people are irresponsible, act foolishly, make bad decisions and mistakes. We are, after all, human.
My problem with the law, as I have said repeatedly, is that in outlawing abortion, the government is insising that a woman remain pregnant. I cannot think of any current law in which by demanding that I do not do X, that therefore, I MUST do Y. Do you understand my problem (even if you do not agree)?
Our society suffers from a number of problems, from abortion to single parenthood, divorce, drugs, etc. I don't wish the government to demand that women HAVE abortions instead of being single parents, or demand that people stay married, etc. I do not believe it is the place of government to micromanage the culture.
I want you to consider this: When the light at the intersection turns red, the government forces you to wait for a couple of minutes. Likewise, the government forces you not to rob banks, or at least provides some pretty strong disincentives. At any rate, the anti-choice line is specious at best, since we are all anti-choice on many, many matters.
The problem you and many like you have, it would seem, can be traced to the fact that abortion has been legal for some amount of time now. It's become accepted by some. Certainly, the Emancipation Proclaimation brought some uncomfortable changes (aside from the dreadful concommitants of war) to those who depended upon the subversion of one group of people to another - in this case, a particular racial group. If one were a secessionist she would apply the same line of reasoning ("It's convenient"; "Government ought not force its views"; etc.) to the ownership of black slaves. Abortion has become an accepted part of society, and has made it easy and possible for people to become pregnant.
Your argument - to wit, in outlawing abortion the government is insisting that a woman remain pregnant - is highly suspect. Ultimately it is useful only in cases of rape, which account for a tiny percentage of abortions performed. The reason: the government does not force someone to become pregnant in the first place, and the government in enforcing abortion law is merely protecting another human being, just as the government protects you and I from foreign enemies abroad, and from criminals here at home.
It has attained this acceptable status through ignorance - one party is strong and has a voice, the other side has no voice and is easy and convenient to kill. Abortion - slavery's contemporary and much more violent analog - allows the victim to be hidden. Many of us who care deeply about these people with no voice of their own can almost feel the pain of them being ripped apart, sans anesthesia. I look at our own little one-month-old baby, and cringe to think of him being torn apart in this way.
About your personal beliefs I know only what little you've shared on this public forum, but would with humility point you to these words of Jesus:
25:35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
25:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
25:37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
25:38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
25:39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
And here is one from Proverbs, highly appropriate for this topic:
24:11 If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain;
24:12 If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?
In that latter spirit I want everybody in my state and indeed in this nation to see what an abortion looks like. Every person, upon seeing such, must make a choice. The signs I've used are not signs held outside of abortion clinics by protestors but rather in mundane, unexpected places. I have seen reactions that bespeak a breathtaking ignorance, and by that, the ongoing carnage notwithstanding, I am encouraged.
Wrong.
What is illegal does not, ipso facto, become "unpreventable."
Your "logic" would also posit thus: "When the speed limit is 55, then drivers will be forced by the Government to drive 55."
More important, however, is the question which you wish to avoid: "Should positive law enshrine certain principles of natural law?"
(We shall assume for the sake of the argument that induced abortion is contrary to the natural law.)
The answer to the question is Yes. Resoundingly, YES.
This also applies to fudgepacking, adultery, and pornography, whether "child" or not.
Whether you like it or not, the Positivists in the Supreme Court have proceeded logically from Roe to Kelo; in Kelo, all they had to do was re-define certain words.
One can characterize Kelo as a manifestation of a lack of integrity, which lack of integrity springs from the willful contravention of natural law.
It's all very well and good that you think "abortion" is a States'-rights issue--but you are wrong on that premise, as well, for the same reasons.
Worse, your 'forces a woman....' argument is really just childish foot-stomping, even if you are attempting to project that argument as one made by a third person.