WWJD

Since He's not here to ask, and the decision was left in our hands, what would YOU do?

A nine-year old girl is raped by her father. Giving birth to the baby would rip her body apart.

A woman will die unless her pregnancy is terminated. The fetus will never survive outside the womb.

Fanatics, ask yourself this question: Why do you care about people before they're born more than you do AFTER they're born? Are you willing to let young women—along with their unborn children—die for an idea?

Let me be as clear as possible: I abhor abortion. I find it disturbing and morally repugnant that so many are performed because having a child would be an inconvenience to one or more people*. I believe it's the ultimate abdication of personal responsibility. Having said that, when someone is raped, when they are a victim of incest, when their life is in danger, or when it's simply medically necessary, the moral waters are just as crystal clear. Sometimes, abortion is necessary. Plain and simple.

Late-term abortions are not done out of convenience. And contrary to the nutbags on the Political Right that insist they are never done to save the life of the mother, they are performed only in cases of extreme medical need.**

But then again, I don't expect that group to ever "get it". They're about dogma and feelings, not fact, science, medical need, or any rational sort of discernment. God forbid (and yes, I mean that literally and in the metaphysical sense) that they ever get their way.


* Having said that, I've also never been a scared young woman with no support system and a violent home life.

** (This is where someone will point out an exception. Yes, there are exceptions. But how many times do you need to be right for me to be wrong? How many young women have to suffer needlessly? How many lives need to be torn apart?)

edit: From an excellent article by Carol Joffee:

"In simplest terms, many of those who came to George Tiller's clinic for late second or third trimester abortions were women (and their partners) who were carrying much wanted pregnancies that had gone horribly wrong. These were women in many cases who had already set up cribs and had baby showers. Some of these women had fetuses with heartbreaking anomalies, that were discovered only later in pregnancy, such as anencephaly, a lethal birth defect in which most of the brain and parts of the skull are missing. Other women had themselves become very ill in the course of a pregnancy, such as the onset of cancer, which demanded a course of chemotherapy. Tiller, himself a practicing Christian, had set aside a space in his clinic-- a Quiet Room-- for grieving parents, who could if they wished, be counseled by a chaplain on staff, and participate in a baptism or other blessings for the lost pregnancy."

That's what Jesus would do.