There’s been a lot of abortion debate flying around various blogs, Facebook, and Twitter lately, due to the upcoming Roe v. Wade anniversary, the recent arrest of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, and Speaker of the House Boehner’s “No Taxpayer Funding of Abortion Act.” In the course of such debates, the pejorative “anti-choice” is often used by those on the pro-abortion side of the debate describe pro-lifers. To them, I address the following:
I am not “anti-choice.” I couldn’t care less what cereal you eat in the morning, what vehicle you drive, or what clothes you wear. If you prefer Fruit Loops over Captain Crunch, more power to you! If you purchase a Ford Fiesta instead of a Honda Civic, that is fine and dandy with me. If your idea of formal wear is ripped jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, you go on with your bad self. I may not like your choices, but I have no interest in restricting them. I am one hundred percent in favor of legitimate choice.
Note the phrase “legitimate.” We all have choices, but, as members of a civilized society, our choices have consequences. I support your choice to choose what breakfast cereal you eat, but I do not support your choice to poison said cereal before giving it to your children. I support your choice in what car to drive, but I do not support your choice to drive 90 miles per hour on the interstate while texting. I support your choice in what clothing to wear, but I do not support your choice to ride the subway naked.
Coincidentally, our justice system is also “anti-choice” in these examples. I’ve yet to see protesters frothing at the mouth when a person is prosecuted for poisoning their children’s breakfast cereal, or for causing the death of other drivers after reckless driving, or exposing themselves in public.
Abortion is an example of a choice that our government currently deems legitimate but that I, and many others, feel is illegitimate. Similarly, in 1857 there were those who felt that Dred Scott was a full-fledged human being, despite the government’s decision that he was only 3/4ths human. In 1935 there were many Germans who felt that Jews should not be legally killed despite the government’s passage of the Nuremburg laws. Pro-lifers generally feel that that one group of human beings cannot and should not make the choice to determine the humanity (or lack thereof) of other human beings.
For those of us who believe that human life begins at conception, and that all human beings are entitled to the right to life, the choice to kill another human being is not legitimate. The mother’s right to “choice” ends where her baby’s living, growing, developing body begins. In the vast majority of cases*, a man and a woman exercised their legitimate choice to engage in a consensual sexual act –an act that’s biological purpose is to create babies – prior to the conception of the child. As no form of contraception is 100% effective, they made that choice knowing that conception could possibly occur, however remote the possibility. If the consequence of their choice is the conception of a child, then it is their responsibility to accept the consequences of the choice they made and ensure that the child receives all rights to which s/he is entitled; fundamentally, the right to life. The “choice” in this instance was whether or not to engage in the sexual act. Pro-abortion activists like to pretend that a person may spontaneously combust if they have to restrain themselves from having sex, but fortunately that is not the case.
As another Catholic Phoenix blogger noted, “Once a new life exists, choice ends and responsibility begins. Choosing a violent solution to a situation that you already ‘chose’ by deciding to be intimate in that way is a dishonest and deadly cop-out and is beneath your dignity as a human person and as a woman. ‘Trust women’? To do what? Trust women to act responsibly when someone else’s life hangs in the balance? I would love to. Trust women to put the life of an innocent, voiceless son or daughter above her own needs? I would love to trust women to act in this way.”
I am not “anti-choice.”
I am “anti-deliberately-killing-innocent-and-defenseless-human-beings.” I am “anti-not-taking responsibility-for-the-consequences-of-your-actions.” As all that’s difficult to fit into your average 140-character tweet, I shorten it to “pro-life.”
*[In the cases where the sexual act was not consensual, then the issue becomes one of not punishing an innocent party, the child, for the crimes of its biological parent. If the mother has a health issue, the principle of double effect comes into play (despite the actions of certain hospitals).]
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