Those needs are already tempered, as was previously stipulated by the trimester rules that I’ve already cited. So what about babies who have rare diseases or need a kidney? Should we be able to force other people to save their lives by appropriating the use of their body with or without their consent?
One in four women has an abortion in the US. The potential morality of that is irrelevant in the face of the facts. The only way to reduce the need for abortions is to do things which make for fewer unintended pregnancies — all of which we’ve already discussed. In the absence of legal abortion, women will do it illegally and end up harming and killing themselves. What about that loss of life? Doesn’t that count for anything or do they deserve to die because of what they are doing?
I was put up for adoption at birth and did not go to the family who raised me until I was 7 months old. Those 7 months in what was apparently loving foster care still scarred me for life and a lot of foster care is terrible. I have deep attachment wounds that I am still grappling with. What kind of further trauma might I have endured in abusive or neglectful foster care? There are also not enough families out there to take in and adopt the unwanted children of 1/4 of the women in this country — in the US most of whom are brown.
Life cannot be separated from quality of life. That’s what “life is precious” means to me. To bring a child into the world is a sacred calling. To demand that this take place in a world that is already over-populated and into a situation where the child is neither wanted nor able to be properly cared for is not a kindness. It’s been hypothesized that the drastic reduction in crime that took place in the early 1980s was due in large part to the fact that abortion becoming legal in 1964 meant significantly fewer unwanted, unloved, poor and hungry children who had turned to anti-social behavior were coming of age.
Absolutely nobody thinks that abortion is a desirable or good thing, but it’s always existed and it always will. Even if we address unwanted conceptions thoroughly, there will still always be circumstances where abortion will be necessary. Thinking that shouldn’t be the case will not change it.
