I chose a difficult one: abortion (pro-life or pro-choice)
I am pro-life and will always be, but I wanted to try to see it from another perspective. It was really difficult, and I'm not sure I was able to fully see it from another person's shoes. I can't picture myself sitting in the clinic about to do something like that. I relaize there are people who say, "you don't understand until you are in that situation." But then when I look back to the people who I went to high school with who used abortion a "safe way" to have sex it makes me sick. If you are going to have sex with your partner be ready to suffer the consequences. Not that having a child is a negative consequence that will cause suffering, but it will if you are in college and not ready for it. I think Norma McCorvey, who was the "Jane Roe" in the Roe v. Wade suit said it best when she was interviewed USA Today she stated that once, while employed at a clinic when no one was in: "I went into the procedure room and laid down on the table... trying to imagine what it would be like having an abortion... I broke down and cried." On ABC's World News Tonight, Norma McCorvey said: "I think abortion's wrong. I think what I did with Roe v. Wade was wrong."
If found this quote from a pro-choice fundamentalist Dr. Malcom Watts, he was writing a pro-abortion piece for the California Medical Association said: “...it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous until death.”
RU 468 "It works by blocking progesterone, a crucial hormone during pregnancy. Without progesterone, the uterine lining does not provide food, fluid and oxygen to the tiny developing baby. The baby cannot survive. A second drug is then given that stimulates the uterus to contract and the baby is expelled."
Suction-Aspiration "The abortionist inserts a hollow plastic tube with a knife-like edge into the uterus. The suction tears the baby’s body into pieces. The placenta is cut from the uterine wall and everything is sucked into a bottle."
Dilation and Curettage (D and C) "This is similar to a suction procedure except a curette, a loop-shaped steel knife is inserted into the uterus. The baby and placenta are cut into pieces and scraped out into a basin. Bleeding is usually very heavy with this method."
Dilation and Evacuation (D and E) This is done after third month of pregnancy: "A pliers-like instrument is inserted through the cervix into the uterus. The abortionist then seizes a leg, arm or other part of the baby and, with a twisting motion, tears it from the body. This continues until only the head remains. Finally the skull is crushed and pulled out. The nurse must then reassemble the body parts to be sure that all of them were removed."
Prostaglandin Abortion "Prostaglandin is a hormone that induces labor. The baby usually dies from the trauma of the delivery. However, if the baby is old enough, it will be born alive. This is called a “complication.” To prevent this, some abortionists use ultrasound to guide them as they inject a “feticide” (a drug that kills the fetus) into the unborn baby’s heart. They then administer prostaglandin and a dead baby is delivered. This type of abortion is used in mid and late term pregnancies."
Dilation and Extraction (D and X) Used on mid to late term babies: "The child’s body is then pulled out of the birth canal except for the head which is too large to pass through the cervix. The baby is alive, and probably kicking and flailing his legs and arms. The abortionist hooks his fingers over the baby’s shoulders, holding the woman’s cervix away from the baby’s neck. He then jams blunt tipped surgical scissors into the base of the skull and spreads the tips apart to enlarge the wound. A suction catheter is inserted into the baby’s skull and the brain is sucked out. The skull collapses and the baby’s head passes easily through the cervix."
It is hard for me to sit here and read these discriptions about the medical methods of abortion and be even remotely okay with the idea. I mean sucking out the body in pieces? Sucking the brain out? I just don't understand how someone can be okay with that.
Then I realize that people comment about what if someone was raped, and I realize that is already a hard position, but there are so many things you can do. Yes, I realize that it would be difficult to bring a baby to term after being raped, but wouldn't it be hard to kill it too? I've talked to several people who have had abortions and gotten the same response back: it was the worst mistake they have ever made and a day doesn't go by when they think of their lost child.
I tried hard to see it from the other side, but after reading all the methods and policies about abortion I think my understanding of the issue and what I think is right is more firm after reading the research.
