I honestly shouldn't have to defend this position. Its pretty self-evident. I think it is interesting that when you do try and see things from another person's perspective, but can't do it; people say you are insensitive. I guess that is where I find myself right now. I am a white male and I am either to be kowtowed to an anti-life caucus or caricatured as some insensitive while male who wants to keep his squaw barefoot and pregnant. So, lets briefly look at the facts.
Women's health is important. I know this because I am a human being with friends who are women. I know women who have had cancer and struggled through it. I know women who have faced other life threatening illnesses. I have known women who have suffered hostility just because they are women. And I have known women who have been brave enough to raise children against all odds. Let me be frank, those women who know the responsibility of raising children on their own, or at least with cards stacked against them, are the bravest heroes of all. They dare to shout out for life in a cosmos bent towards death.
I remember one such person in particular. She was in a cadre of friends of mine. I remember one day we went out for coffee and she told me she had some sobering news. As we drove, she told me she had become pregnant. Unmarried and not from the best economic situation, this is a "life-sentence" for anyone. I was there for her obviously, but I knew her decision was bigger than anything I had ever faced in my life. For her, it wasn't even a question though. She had that child. It wasn't the best of scenarios, but no one gets to choose a better scenario. She raised it with the help of her family, but frankly I think the temptation to give up on the hardships would have been there too.
I find it interesting the way we misrepresent courage and cowardice. It is as if being a woman or a man lets you be one or the other depending on your own clan. Some women say that men shouldn't talk about an operation that terminates a human life. Some men act as if women are just God's afterthought and should be grateful to get a footnote in the Bible. But I can't see how a member of the human community can think that another person isn't worth an inestimable cost. We hear of castaways lost and away from human beings dying for companionship. We know that the UN declares prolonged solitary confinement a crime against humanity. A human life is precious. It seems we only realize it when we are away from them. When we have a surplus of humanity then we talk of slavery and exploitation. We talk of death penalties and abortions. We discuss the cost benefit analysis of troops or healthcare or job markets. Stalin once said, "To kill one man is murder, to kill many is statistics." It is sad that his grim arithmetic is just as logical for the capitalist as the totalitarian. No one really has free-choice when convenience is the guiding star.
But this isn't just a tale about me, or my friend, or the women I know; is it? Its a tale about how we want to be remembered. It is just trading one terrible sin against a less terrible sin (if such cost-benefit analysis exists in our Lord's mind). We must make sure that women's health doesn't get used by extremists and charlatans. The progressives are right to demand women's health needs are covered. They must be covered, or this whole debate was a sham. Let us take Utah for example. The state recently moved all of its money from Planned Parenthood to women's health clinics. This move obviously fixes the problems. In fact, Democrats for Life has stated that giving to these clinics is a far better return on the investment.
While hyperbole is running rampant from both camps, and human lives are being used in this political chess game; we should not let our common humanity be clouded. The ethical answer is simple: What will preserve the most human life? We leave as secondary the penultimate questions of: What causes the most human flourishing? or What helps society the most? To place these as primary is to give way to the eugenicist and the malthusian. Human life and being in community is difficult. The choices are not easy. Life is not an easy choice.
So, I guess I am for choices. I am for hard ones. I am pro-the difficult choice. The choice that costs me more in my taxes. I am for the choices that make inconvenience me. I am for the choice of life. None of us really got a choice of where and to whom we are born, but I don't think a person alive can say it was a bad choice. There really is only one bad choice in that regard.
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