The Abortion Question

"The abortion debate will not go away. The fundamental issue at stake is not reproductive freedom but the desire to extend human rights to all - even the smallest and most vulnerable human beings among us."

I don't remember where I found it, but this quote is so beautiful and so very true. The fundamental question is not whether a woman should have control over her own body (after all, how many of us have real conscious control over everything that our bodies do anyways?), but whether a growing, unborn baby deserves the basic right to life.

In Canada, each of us, at one point in our lives, did not have a right to be alive. We aren't alive because we are individual humans with intrinsic value and dignity. We are only alive because of a single external factor ... our parents wanted us. Or at the very least, our mothers couldn't bring themselves to kill us.

Look at yourself in the mirror. Look at someone you love dearly. Should they have been killed if their mother had decided it was necessary? Think really hard about that question, before you decide whether or not a single person should have control over the continuation of your loved one's life.

Maybe it would be easier to think about with a concrete example. My best friend's boyfriend is from a country where abortion is outlawed except in certain cases. This man's mother unwillingly gave birth to her son. If abortion-on-demand had been legal, he would be dead now. Should he have died because he wasn't wanted? Take a look at some of the abortion survivor videos in the "Pro-life Media" page. These are people who should be dead, but managed to survive. Would you be able to look them in the face and tell them that they should have been "terminated"?

I know I couldn't.