Belated

It's a little late for Blogging for Choice day, but a quick note: I'm pro-choice because I look forward to a time when people don't feel the need to ask such a question anymore. The key to the phrase is 'choice' - legalised abortion isn't the same as mandatory abortion, and women who choose to abort a child all have their own reason - it is not simply a case of 'I don't want to have a child because I hate children.' More often than not, abortion is chosen either for health reasons or because the women doesn't want a child at that point in her life, perhaps because she lives in an unsuitable environment to raise one or wants to do other things in her life before committing herself to raising a human being. In some cases, one abortion allows more children to be brought into the world, as this image shows:

This was the only counter-demonstrator I saw, though I assume there were others at the end of the March on the Capitol Steps. I asked if I could take her picture and she explained to me that her mother, who already had a few children, had had a dangerous pregnancy and had to have an abortion to save her own life. She went on to have five more kids, including this lady, who was the youngest. She was convinced that because of the possibility of similar situations, there should be no laws against abortion. She was crying and the mother in me wanted to wipe her tears away. Some Pro-Lifers had yelled slogans at her, but as we were talking a beautiful young woman (in the next picture) joined us to engage in some real dialogue.

A woman who wouldn't be there if it wasn't for her mother having the right to choose a safe, legal abortion. By the way, the woman in the next picture listened to this woman's story and said that 'there was room in the church's teachings for cases such as her mother's'. But what of those who have no faith in a god? What of us atheists? Must we also abide by the teachings of an establishment we reject? The church isn't the government here, and I hope it never becomes so. I have no qualms against people who reject abortion on moral or religions grounds - for just as people may choose to have an abortion, so these people may choose not to have one. However, it isn't unheard of for such people, when they are actually faced with an unwanted pregnancy or one which endangers their health, to suddenly do a U-turn and seek that which they only yesterday sought to have abolished. If they succeed in their efforts to erode and eventually remove the right of women to safe legal abortion, what then? Let us not forget that abortion rates in countries where it its illegal aren't wildly different to those countries where is is allowed. The difference is in how many women actually survive the procedure with their life, health and fertility all intact - women have been having abortions for centuries regardless of how safe the procedure is, and if the only way to end an unwanted pregnancy is to pour hydrochloric acid or insert sharp objects into the womb, then believe me, many will do that.

A mother of 12 children, she had tried—unsuccessfully—to induce an abortion. "She came into the hospital with her intestines hanging out her vagina," recalls Jonas. "Then she died."

A quote from an article on when abortion was illegal in America. Read it.
Those that survive this may become sterile - so if they want children in the future they will be unable to do so. What is to be said of that? Is that 'protecting the unborn' through law?

Which is better, more 'pro-life'? Saving the life of one woman, or, by refusing to do so, destroying both her life and that of the future child you are also striving to protect?