Another Opinion/Confession

This post comes from an inner battle that has taken place for almost three years. In high school I was pro-life, ready to debate anyone who wanted to. This position was taken largely because I assumed that Christians had no choice in the matter. Then I realized that the Lord has allowed several abortions to take place, allowing women to make their own choices. It was a fact that women were choosing to have abortions, and I felt that Christians should not hold non-Christians to the same standard of living as they choose to live. Though I personally felt abortions were murder, I have been politically pro-choice up until two weeks ago. (Obviously, this is news to most people who read this. You don't even say the words "pro-choice" in a conservative place like BBC, for fear of condemnation, weeping, and gnashing of teeth.)

My reasoning for the pro-choice decision went something like this:
1) Women are having abortions, like it or not.
2) Women have had abortions for centuries, like it or not.
3) It is only recently that we have the opportunity to provide safe and healthy means for women who are choosing to abort anyway.
4) We should, therefore, provide safe and healthy means for women who are choosing to abort.
5) Meanwhile, we can hopefully counsel women away from abortion, helping them understand the emotional and physical damage they're about to undergo.

Then two weeks ago it hit me: I wasn't providing safety and health as much as I was enabling something I think is cruel and wrong. Studies show that women suffer enormous trauma before, during, and after abortions (especially during and after). We don't hear about this because women hide their deepest trauma when they don't feel safe to share it and heal from it. Abortion is also eliminating a life with a heartbeat, unique DNA, etc. Providing private, sanitary places for women to do almost irreversible damage to themselves and certainly irreversible damage to their babies is doing NOTHING to make the situation better.

Here's my reasoning now:
1) Women are having abortions now, like it or not.
2) Women have always had abortions, like it or not.
3) Women have not always had private, sanitary clinics in which to abort their babies.
4) The presence of clinics simply makes an ancient process very private and sanitary.
5) The presence of clinics does not lessen the murder rate or female degradation and trauma.
6) The presence of clinics simply makes abortion an easier choice in which one does not have to consider things like murder rate, degradation, or trauma if one so chooses.
7) Thus, the presence of legal clinics is enabling murder, degradation, and trauma.
8) Women will still choose to abort their babies, whether or not it's legal.
9) Some women will choose to carry the baby to term, if they consider the consequences of abortion without clinics.
10) Laws should be put in place to remove abortion clinics and illegalize abortion.

In a timely manner the US is brewing over the South Dakota decision to defy Roe v. Wade. Opponents of the pro-lifers say that women, their doctors, and their families should be able to make personal health care decisions without government interference (from the president of Planned Parenthood president, Cecile Richards). Someone who thinks a responsible health care decision is to eliminate the life of one's baby, to disrupt the natural pregnancy cycle and throw the reproductive system into disarray, to put one's life at risk to eliminate another life, and to ask for the emotional depression that comes after eliminating the life of one's own child (similar to losing a wanted baby, but often worse, according to studies I did for an ATS paper last spring), desperately needs SOMEONE to interfere. Maybe the government shouldn't dictate health decisions, but abortion isn't a decision for health and wellness.

In other words, I'm pro-life now, politically and in my convictions. One last word, if you're still reading: forget about all the exceptions. I'm not stupid; I understand that there have been/will be cases to prove me wrong. My point isn't to overgeneralize an issue to the exclusion of case-by-case consideration. So, save us the defensive response to throw up all the exceptions that we all know exist.