DeepThought: Abortion

By Tyler Clarke

Abortion is one of the most sadly disputed topics in America today. You have the freedom-loving conservatives justly chanting under their flag of Christianity about how they're "pro-life" (and, apparently, pro-death-in-a-hole-with-a-heroin-needle-in-your-arm, judging by how little they understand the economics behind abortion). You have liberals evilly arguing for personal freedom - gosh darn it, we can't have this kind of flip-floppin'! Not only is it polarizing, it's dragging the parties out of their niches because of religion.
At heart, the pro-life movement is motivated by Christianity and the belief that babies have souls at conception (apparently, a wad of semen has a soul?). It's thus "murder" to remove the little parasites from your body. The easiest way to unravel this argument is to use biological fact and a bit of pseudo-religious handwaving (see: religion in general): the baby is literally a parasitic biological extension of the mother until the umbilical cord is cut, which is at birth. Unfortunately, conservative Christians disagree, and thus we have this problem.

Because it's rooted in faith, it is, sadly, impossible to grind down the opposition to abortions. Faith is like that: irrational, dangerous, and very sticky. I think a middle ground, however, may be struck.
Say we accept that abortion is baby murder. Ok. I'd imagine we'd want to stop that, then? No. Think about the economics: A new baby can utterly ruin your life. Most people just won't be able to afford it. That means one less person making active contributions to the economy. Guess where they are? In a ditch. With a heroin needle in their arm. Dead. That baby will be shoved into a system of foster care that will probably do significant psychological damage (not to mention making access to good education after high school next to impossible), and then you have two people in a ditch. Maybe even the same ditch. I don't know. Abortion keeps that from happening. It's a bad solution, granted, that leads to dead babies, but it's a solution. If you conservatives want less abortions, start funding programs that will help keep those single moms (or full pairs of parents - the scenario can be bad for both types) afloat. Lobby to improve sexual education, instead of doing the opposite (I'm looking at you, Ron Desantis), so less people have unprotected sex.

A Christian conservative I know once argued that it's a personal choice, having sex, so the consequences should be personal (forgiving sins, apparently, is a thing that happens to other people). What this is basically saying is, "screw you, I don't care if you live or die, but ADHERE TO MY MORAL SYSTEM, DAMMIT". By this logic, drug rehab clinics sponsored by the state should all be shut down - gosh darn it, we ain't gonna waste our hard-earned tax dollars on other people. Same thing with hospitals with state support in general, actually, although I'm not sure how many of them are fully private or not. Police? Why should we fund them to prevent crime when we can just shoot criminals? Obviously it's everybody's job to defend themselves! Hey, old invalid lady over there, do you know how to shoot a rifle? Well, screw you! It's a personal choice to do drugs, but we still help addicts. It's a personal choice not to have enough guns to power an army (and, please, can we have more people who make this choice?), but we still have people whose job it is to protect civilians. Why shouldn't we have programs who help people who made bad choices (unprotected sex), and, until these happen, abortions to bandage the wound?