Bring Me To Life

It has been noted ad infinitum in the mainstream press that John McCain’s running mate opposes abortion in all circumstances except to preserve the threatened life of the expectant mother. Her views have raised the eyebrows not only of those committed to preventing the reversal of Roe v. Wade, but also of those who staunchly oppose abortion for birth-control purposes but feel it should be legal in cases where pregnancies occur as a result of sexual assault or molestation.

The media would have us believe that Palin’s perception of pregnancy is right-wing nutjob stuff. There are plenty of Americans on both sides of the aisle who are uneasy with Palin’s almost-absolute abhorrence of abortion. Yet her opinion is not necessarily evidence of “ultra-conservatism.”

From a philosophical perspective, Palin’s view makes total sense. The unborn child is always innocent, even if he or she was conceived as a result of a criminal act. The unborn child, according to Palin, should not be punished for the sinful act of one of the parents.

This view cannot reasonably be called extreme. Is it “odd”, in our post-Roe culture? Sure. Yet it does not fit any common-sense definition of ultra-conservatism.

Dear MartinaMisc,
America (the left in particular) are beginning to remind me more and more of the Nazis. From Margaret Sanger’s grand vision of racial genocide and eugenics comes a brave new world. It will be far worse than Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”. Infanticide is just around the corner. Get rid of the defectives, the elderly, the genetically undesirable in order to form a more perfect world. The one little deficiency of thought here is that practicing muslims don’t practice birth control. Look at what is happening in Britain. Sharia Law already has its nose under the British tent.

Gov Palin’s position is not extreme. It is logical.

I have heard all of the political and emotional arguments for the “except in the case of rape or incest” illogic and though they are seductive, they are not convincing. From the political perspective, one might suggest that there is a better chance of getting anti-abortion legislation passed when exceptions are allowed and I have no reason to doubt that assertion. From the emotional angle, we all have heart-felt sympathy for the victimized mother.

There is a powerful reluctance to force a woman to continue her physically demanding and emotionally draining role in the most divine function of God’s nature when the initiation of that process was without the mother’s normally assumed consent. We would be assigning to her the responsibility to carry into this world a new soul who will be a seemingly unholy combination of her own self and of a man who is either frighteningly unknown or sinfully familiar.

There is, of course, the almost inescapable temptation to assume this new person will somehow not be good because the genetic code of a rapist was used in his/her construction. Or that the new person will somehow not be complete because of the potential for physiological problems to arise when daddy is grandpa.

Adoption is always an option when the post-birth burdens outweigh the natural desire of the mother to nurture a child which is, after all, still half her.

On any scientific or logical rationale, assuming human life has value, I would ask two questions:
-Does it continue to grow and change via natural biologic process? - If so, it is alive.
-What will you call this life if the process is allowed to complete? - If the answer is ‘human’, then it has rights.

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