A cliched phrase keeps coming back to haunt me: "It's better to be safe than sorry." I can't help but wonder why it doesn't seem to apply to the abortion debate. Roe v. Wade decision said that the government can't say when life begins. It doesn't say a fetus is or isn't a person. It seems to me (and this idea was the main reason I stopped being pro-choice) that if we can't be certain, we ought not kill it. Why don't people wish to err for life rather than death? If an action has an unknowable outcome that kills (and let there be no doubt about that part) either something or someone, shouldn't that action only be taken in the most dire of circumstances, lest a person be killed unjustly?
Here is a well thought out piece by a pretty moderate guy (or so it seems from this post). I particularly like the end:
"…'choice' for many pro-choicers is only truly 'choice' when it results in abortion. Actually carrying a pregnancy to term is something else, but it isn't 'choice.'."
"I'm normally fairly passive in my anti-abortion views. I believe it ought to be an issue decided at the state level, if not at a level even more parochial. So I've no use for a 'pro-life amendment,' but I'm not crazy about a federal guarantee to an abortion, either. I see a clear and distinct difference between a morning after pill (which I'd probably even allow to be legal if it were up to me), and a late-term, partial birth abortion, which really can't be distinguished from infanticide. But I also have no problem with, for example, Utah banning any and all abortion. If the issue is important to me, I can choose to live in a state with readier access (and that's really the state of the procedure today — in practice if not in letter)."
Funky Dung
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