To the Pro-Life Reader of the Squidbag:
Seems to me the argument on abortion should mirror the argument on guns: No one likes the thing itself, and in a perfect world, it / they wouldn't be necessary. We don't live in a perfect world, and it's this way because we make it this way. No one likes shooting people in the face (unless you're Dick Cheney), but the need to shoot someone (yes, even in the face) may come up, so it'd be nice if guns were legal and regulated when and if that happens. People aren't perfect, they enjoy exploiting each other, and violence often reigns. Sucks, but that's the way it is. Until the dawn of Utopia, I'll hold on to my .357 and hollowpoints.
No reasonable person wants to go around killing people, but if the need for killing people with a gun should arise, you'd want to have a gun handy. You wouldn't want them to be illegal, knocked off the books by the Supreme Court, available only as a black market commodity so you'd be forced to buy a cheap & shitty one in a back alley somewhere, one that might not work, or worse, kill you. That would suck, right? That's all us "pro-abortion" people are about, guys. There's no one walking around with a "Have More Abortions, Ladies" sign at rallies. It's a simple question of rights and availability - if they were completely illegal, that would be bad for everyone, in the final analysis. Women need to fully govern what happens in their own bodies.
And so now you're dwelling on the potential life, the bun in the oven, the supposed "rights of the unborn." Well, the way I read the Constitution, until you can survive not attached to another human being, literally living off the sustenance they provide, you are not, by definition, an individual, and thus, have no rights. It's only when holy books get brought into the equation that these definitions become fluid (those of the "individual" and the "rights" thereof), and I thought Christians at least were supposed to live by laws of the land in which they reside - "render unto Caesar" and all that. The sanctity of life argument doesn't work for most people, and so what it seems we're really fighting about is potential. The huge quantity of potential that is erased when an abortion happens. And that is a sadness, possibly a tragedy, and should not be entered into lightly. And yet, I maintain that it should be available as an option. There are greater injustices - raising an unwanted child, or one that's a product of dysfunction, drugs, violence, incest, rape, or simple ignorant carelessness. And even if that is the case, who speaks for the lives terminated in other legal, available ways, and the potential that they might have represented?
Man kills. It is a part of our evolution that we hold power over life and death. There are consequences for creating life, and there should be consequences for taking it. And they are, for the most part, inherent - no need for punitive laws and legislation. It is a subject that spawns literally endless debate, and I imagine it always will. But maybe I have a shined a light on a different facet of it for you.
Maybe.