A case well made.

I've been pro-life and pro-choice at various times, though my position now incorporates pieces of both. While my beliefs here are largely just that: beliefs, I have nonetheless given them a great deal of thought and not arrived at them by way of tradition or the words of another. For obvious reasons I don't share them often, but this seems as appropriate a time as any.

1. Abortion is morally wrong. I do believe this. I also believe humans engage in immoral behavior on a regular basis and that the purpose of law is not to enforce morality so much as encourage order. I think it is self-evident that the individual who chooses abortion is not prepared to provide for a child, psychologically or emotionally or financially or however. Parents like this invariably damage their children, sometimes intentionally. When I think of the morality of killing an unborn child, my next thought is always about the morality of abandoning a child with a parent who would just as soon kill them if they could. Not living to experience a life like that may be a small mercy. That thought is inextricably tied up with my next belief:

2. Life is not sacred, in any form. Thinking otherwise is, at best, well-intentioned confusion and, at worst, basic self-interest masquerading as altruism. In a society that believes in the sanctity of life, we all have less fear of losing our lives at the hands of those around us. That is why we believe it. It is a useful idea but it is not a truth. Arguments for and against abortion all center around the sanctity of life, and it is this falsehood at the core which gives way to falsehoods on both sides. The sanctity of life is like fiat currency. Its value is not fixed, its influence varies with the environment, and ultimately it exists only to serve our personal needs. Basing any argument regarding the murder of human beings on platitudes like "every life has meaning" is beyond idiocy. We kill bacteria, bugs, plants, animals, and humans with impunity. Killing is as much a part of life as living is. Which brings me to my third belief.

3. The belief that abortion is murder (which we allow under many circumstances) should not be enough to make it illegal. When you accept that "killing is bad" is insufficient reason to outlaw abortion (we kill innocents all the time) and that some "sanctity of life" is insufficient reason to outlaw abortion (we kill all the time), the last thing left to consider is the real outcomes, the thing we normally consider before we kill. To me, it is a question of suffering. Pro-choicers are concerned with the temporary suffering of the mother. Pro-lifers are concerned with the temporary suffering of the child. I am concerned about the life-long suffering of the child who will one day become an adult driven by their suffering. I've seen what happens to kids born to mothers who do not want them but cannot kill them. It is beyond immoral, it is evil. The child is killed a little more every day, without the mercy of death. Pro-lifers comfort themselves with the lie that most children saved goes on to live a good life, that a significant percentage of mothers and fathers who would kill suddenly become decent parents. Anyone engaged in this level of self-delusion is beyond saving. And although pro-choicers also comfort themselves with a lie, that an unborn child is not a person, at least the function of their lie is to protect children from a lifetime of suffering.

Questions about the morality of abortion are questions about how we want to view ourselves and they have nothing to do with protecting the children in question.

If our goal is saving ourselves, then of course we should outlaw abortion; the world will be a more moral place for it and we can continue ignoring questions about parents who hate (but don't maim or kill) their children like we always have. If our goal is saving children, we have two options. First, what is essentially our current course of action 2.0: we can allow abortion as a protective measure in lieu of a more-moral-but-equally-efficacious system while we work to figure out the right way to eliminate lifelong suffering among what unwanted children we already have. Or second, we can outlaw abortion and IMMEDIATELY throw all our weight into overhauling our social services and foster care system. Outlawing abortion without any other action does nothing but guarantee the suffering of children and there's nothing righteous about it. Preserving abortion without any other action does nothing but tip-toe around the problems we already have taking care of unwanted children and punishing abusive parents and there's nothing progressive about it. Either way, the abortion itself is a tiny manifestation of an underlying problem that must be addressed. Flipping the abortion switch from on to off won't positively affect anything but sensibilities.

Anyway, as is often the case with heavily politicized wedge issues, everyone involved has been misled into thinking abortion is about them. Meanwhile, living children suffer. I hope to see that reality reflected honestly in our legislation and conversations someday. We'll see.