Abortion

 A woman must decide about the future of her pregnancy before she knows she is pregnant. A woman who is raped must carry a child to term. A woman may die to birth the child. A woman who is forced by government to have the child is then abandoned by the government. A woman who decides the child is unwanted because of social, emotional, health or life circumstances becomes a criminal.

This is the weight that falls on many women. While I personally would find it difficult to support an abortion, I can’t make this decision for others. Nor should government. If government can decide this about the life of an unwanted child, it needs to take responsibility for the child until adulthood. But government does not support the poor child or the homeless child or the abused child with the same fervor as it does abortion issues. The sacredness of life issue does not extend to medical care, education and the death penalty.

And what about the father? Is a father who helps with an abortion a criminal of the same kind as a mother? A mother and father, intentionally or not, make the baby. But nature makes the mother the home of the growing child. What does government require of the responsibility of the father until the maturity of the child? What if the father wants the child and the mother does not?

The narrowness and rigidity of these new laws on abortion don’t make sense and in the long run don’t work in the interest of the child, mother or father.