Random Thoughts

The topic: Abortion.
The issue: the word "choice" and its implications.

We're told that women should have the right to "choose" what to do with their bodies, aka with respect to having abortions. That's "pro-choice" within U.S. political lexicon.

I have a problem with this. The pro-choice argument is that women are capable of making informed decisions for themselves with regard to having an abortion, that they're smart enough and should be counted wise enough to make such a decision (even at age twelve, one should point out). Why are we cutting off the "choice" at this point? Why should they be wise enough to choose to have an abortion -- only at that point in life? Why aren't they using this wisdom and intelligence when it comes to the choice that starts it all -- having sex in the first place?

My two-cents: if someone chooses -- chooses -- to behave in a certain way, they should be responsible for the consequences. That should be true for any and all behavior choices, not just abortion. If you choose to have sex, I say that your wisdom and intelligence should be applied at that point -- not just afterward.

The consequence of having sex is pregnancy and the creation of a unique living being (arguing over when life begins is pointless; the only way a unique human being is formed is through pregnancy, and the potential for such a life is started the moment the act is consumated and the "stuff" that makes babies begins evolving). If you choose to have sex, you should have to accept the responsibility for your actions. The CHOICE doesn't start AFTER a pregnancy has formed, but it starts by choosing to do the thing that creates the pregnancy in the first place. If a 12-yr old, as pro-choice arguments go, is smart and wise enough to go get an abortion because she chose to have sex and "got pregnant", she should by definition have been smart and wise enough to avoid getting pregnant altogether. If she isn't smart and wise enough to make the decision to avoid having sex, then she isn't smart and wise enough to be choosing to have an abortion. The pro-choice argument is precisely that: that wisdom and intelligence should only be expected AFTER the act, not prior to the act, that causes pregnancy. That women are wise and smart enough to choose to have an abortion (or not; and this includes 12-yr. olds, courtesy of California law, remember), but not wise and smart enough to think about consequences before choosing to have sex.

My final two-cents: if you choose to have sex, you should have to live with the consequences of that choice. If you didn't choose (rape, incest, etc. are not choices, ergo not included in this), then you should have the option to apply your wisdom and intelligence to the problem and resolve it to your own conscience (abort or not). By arguing that choice only takes place after pregnancy, the pro-choice side is effectively arguing: that we are free to have sex as wantonly as we choose and at whatever age we choose, because we aren't to be held responsible for the consequences of those actions.

None of this says that the choice to have an abortion is a simple or easy one. It isn't. And that's precisely the point: it isn't simple and it isn't easy, and it does and should require careful thought and consideration before choosing to do so. When pro-choice arguments advocate 12-yr olds being wise and smart enough to choose to have an abortion, and when they argue against laws that would require the 12-yr old to notify her parents without the parents being given any ability to prevent it (mere notification, even if it's from the doctor's office), then they are literally advocating consequence-free sex, and assigning to abortion the absence of any consequence. And they're arguing that this amazing wisdom and intelligence is only applicable and should only be considered at the time of abortion, not in the choosing of the act that leads to pregnancy -- selective application of intelligence and wisdom, timed so because if they argued consistently, they'd realise that there's little intelligence of wisdom in, for instance, the woman I worked with a few years back who was on her fourth abortion. What was her story? She was single, she liked sex, and she thought nothing of having an abortion or of changing her behavior. And she never will, in a world where excuse the consequences of having sex and only think of "choice" as existing after sex, not before.