It's the Woman's Choice

Owen Robinson, author of the blog Boots and Sabers, has a new column in the West Bend News. This one is on the subject of abortion and Robinson goes off the deep end with this one. But not right away. He sounds very reasonable and throughout most of his essay I found myself nodding my head in agreement.

You see, my wife is 12 weeks pregnant and we saw the ultrasound pictures of our baby a week ago. The baby is just 2.5 centimeters long. The baby was quiet at first, but then s/he began kicking and moving about. I was transfixed by the show. Life is so incredible.

On the way home, those pictures evoked a discussion with my wife (who is rather conservative by the way) about abortion. We are both pro-choice, but we could not help but question some of the tenets of what we believe after seeing our baby.

Robinson nicely lined up all the points of our discussion in his, but most importantly he asked as did we: when does life begin? He decided that that life begins at conception. I tend to agree with him, but that still does not change the fact for me that it should only be the woman’s choice to continue or end a pregnancy.

I would prefer to see abortions so few that the only times they are performed are in cases of harm to the woman or rape (more on this). However, I cannot go so far to make it illegal. I am not a woman and cannot ever know how gut wrenching it must be to make the decision to terminate a pregnancy.

I do feel disgust, though, with Robinson’s decision that women who have been raped have no recourse. He’s right; he will never have to face that decision. He’s not a woman. Here’s hoping one of his daughters or his wife never has to face that decision either. Or will they be good little troopers like Robinson?

Here’s hoping that Robinson never has to experience watching his daughters or wife go through the psychological and physical agony of carrying to term the reminder of the day hell descended on them.

I’ll bet he couldn’t do it. He’s lying if he says he could!