For some people, the abortion question is pretty simple. You are either pro-choice, and thus think a woman has every right to do whatever she pleases with her body, or you are pro-life, believing every fetus is a human and deserves the right to live.
Last week, when there were large displays of dead, aborted fetuses around campus there was also a table asking, "Should abortion be legal?" When I responded to that, I naturally fell in line with liberals like myself who signed the "yes" side. But then asked for a reason why I chose this side, I was at a loss.
Unlike most liberals, I am morally opposed to abortion. My reasoning, morally, is because, to me, it seems like murder. Aborting a fetus, especially late-term, cannot be considered ethical by any means. There are a variety of reasons, but mostly because I know people born at five, six, seven months who are normal, adjusted, healthy people.
Imagine if they had been aborted because their mothers had simply decided they couldn't be parents right then. They are lucky they weren't.
However, this isn't to say that I think there are no instances when abortion does seem to make sense. Cases of rape, incest and when a woman's life is at stake are all instances where I have no opposition to abortion. In these instances, no one should be forced to have a child, and quite frankly, women like this shouldn't be expected to be the mother of that child.
What concerns me the most about abortion is that it is used as an alternative to safe sex. It's viewed and used as an emergency contraceptive, like Plan B, but to a heightened extreme. Yes, I agree, not everyone is meant to be a parent, but when making the decision to have sex, there are a variety of consequences that can follow — pregnancy is one of them. Every time a person engages in sex, there is a risk of pregnancy that should be noted by all parties engaging.
With that said, I am not — and do not think I will ever be — opposed to the legalization of abortion. Women have every right to do what they want with their bodies. I may personally believe that if a woman is having sex, she should be ready to have a child, but it is not my right to tell a woman what to do with the parasite growing in her body. Yes, abortion is sad. Yes, I wish there were less of them, but until the demand for them no longer exists, I cannot argue with their legality.
What many pro-lifers mistakenly do is attempt to force when they believe a child becomes a child, illustrating why abortion is so heinous. The display on Hayden Lawn is an example of this. Instead of scaring people away from abortions, we should educate people about safe sex.
In Arizona, we are forced to follow the abstinence-only teaching method when discussing sex. This type of sex-education class is one of the most ineffective in existence. Honestly, the people that have sex will have it regardless of an "abstinence-pledge" they sign.
And as more teens are having sex earlier, it is disgusting that we have not fought for a more comprehensible sex-education program that includes safe sex. Instead of telling students never to have sex and offering them no solutions if they do (and thus nothing to do if they are pregnant), we do not discuss methods to do so safely. Condoms should be made more widely available, and accompanying them should be information on how to use them and why.
When I signed the "yes" side to the "should abortion be legal?" question, it asked for a reason, and I put pro-choice. But in reality, I should have put that though abortions are sad, and I do believe that they shouldn't be used as a contraceptive until every single person is provided with safe-sex education and ways to avoid pregnancy (alongside STDs and HIV). When engaging in sex, abortion not only should be legal, it must be legal. The alternative is not forcing women to become parents and it is not adoption, it is coat hangers and back-alley abortions.
Ray Ceo, Jr. is pro-lifer and a pro-choicer — isn't that hot? E-mail him at: raymond.ceo@asu.edu.
