Whenever someone asks whether I'm "Pro-Life" or "Pro-Choice”, my normal reply is "I'm both"! Invariably, my answer triggers a response suggesting that I can't be both, but this is my explanation. I’m against killing people in war. I'm against the death penalty. I'm against allowing people to starve to death when there is food available to feed them. I'm against allowing sickly people to die when there is medical care available to cure them. I'm against killing people by polluting their air and water. More people die each year from the above-referenced causes than the number of fetuses do by abortion.
I’m also concerned about the number of abortions performed every year in this country, not because I see abortion as murder, but because tens of thousands of abortions are carried out following incidents of rape, incest and instances where a woman's health is in danger. If rape and sexual abuse were eliminated, the number of performed abortions would decline substantially. Insuring good health care for the entire population would also reduce abortions.
Simply making abortion illegal is the coward's response to the issue at hand. It's cowardly because making abortion a crime doesn't address any of the root issues or circumstances that drive most women who end up choosing abortions. It's just the easy way out.
Now, because I do not view a fetus as a person, I do not believe that a fetus has equal or superior rights over the woman in whose womb it exists. I support a woman's right to control her own body and do not think the government has any right to interfere with that right.
I also don't favor a Constitutional Amendment banning abortion. Prohibition didn’t work and neither would a constitutional amendment banning abortion. I’m not in favor of wasting taxpayer dollars trying to pass something that wouldn’t solve the problem.
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