I want to start with the greatest truth humanity has achieved, we are born out of Earth’s processes. It’s a truth born out of our increasing understanding of human history going back into the dimmest reaches of Earth’s deep time. Beginning with geology, then biology joined in, then complex biology, then living sensing creatures that created environments and ecology in an ever changing world. Folds within folds of cumulative harmonic complexity flowing down the cascade of time, rushing into a future inhabited by humans.
Birth and death is our lot. It has always been part and parcel of our human condition. It can’t be moralized out of existence by idealistic extremists who believe “God” is personally speaking with them.
Pregnancy is never a guarantee. A fetus is a seed, a being, a human potentiality. Spontaneous natural abortions, miscarriages happen. A fetus may be a human, but it doesn’t take on the mantle of personhood until those first breaths of life-giving air are infusing its lungs and pumping through its arteries and veins.
It should be significant that the fact of practicing abortions is older than civilizations, with Jewish scripture going into details on the topic, explaining why within particular circumstance abortion is a sad inevitability and that it is okay in the eyes of their God. (God never promised us a rose garden!)
Beyond that, in a free society, legally speaking, why doesn’t a woman deserve the Right to Self-Defense along with Sovereignty Over Her Own Body?
Pregnancy is a difficult gauntlet, always will be, there will be deaths. Those deaths aren’t confined to unborn beings, all too often the mother is also at mortal risk.
When push comes to shove, a just law would clearly acknowledge that a woman’s life is more precious to her existing family and society than an unborn potentiality.
Another factor all too often forgotten is that facing an abortion situation is nothing any woman (or young girl & her family) ever wants, life thrusts the situation upon her, and it is foremost she, herself, who must continue carrying the consequences of her choices, as others lose interest with the passage of time.
Another unspoken matter is that most often she’s also acting with the best interest of the unborn life within her at heart. The fetus inside of her will always matter more to herself, than to any moralizing bystanders. Women should be entrusted above all others, with the responsibility of making their own best informed choices about their own pregnancies.
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