posted on Mar, 10 2010 @ 07:45 AM
This isn't a problem inherent in abortion. It's a cultural bias, one which doesn't affect (many) other nations as it does China.
Opposition to China's iron-fisted 'one child' policy, and its egregiously sexist traditional values, does not form a sound philosophical basis for
opposing abortion. Women in every nation deserve safe, legal, and ready access to abortion; they will seek out abortions regardless of their safety
and legality. Banning them would have traumatic effects on women's health wherever such a ban was implemented, and would badly exacerbate the problem
of our already exponentially skyrocketing population, especially in nations like China.
If you are worried about crime rates, which seems worse-- a nation with 1.6 billion males and 1.4 billion females, or a nation with three billion of
each? Starvation, violence, chaos, and eventual social collapse would inevitably result, and rapidly spread to the rest of the globe.
Nearly every argument I hear against abortion is religious or moral in nature, and these overlook the well-being of women, individual liberty, and the
planet's future in their "moral" calculations. Instead, almost without exception, they draw their priorities from one bronze age religion or
another.
Those few arguments which come from secular points of view still manage to cling to the authoritarian principle that one individual's opinion should
trump that of another, for no good reason other than that the first person is unwilling to countenance the existence of ideas or acts contrary to
their desire-- the ultimate in selfishness. The political Left in America believes that each American woman should be able to make their own decisions
as regards childbirth and abortion. The Right insists staunchly that a board of five hundred and thirty-five politicians (and specifically, the
roughly half of them who believe in banning abortion entirely) should make the decision for her.
It is not that I believe abortion is positive. I simply believe that the decision to bear a child or have an abortion lies solely and entirely with
the pregnant woman. This is America; our Constitution was intended to guarantee equality and liberty of an extreme unprecedented in its time by any
other government. To interpret or apply it as being restrictive of any personal freedom this significant is disgustingly cynical.
If you are morally opposed to abortions, do not have an abortion. But no person has the right to decide for another-- whether that other is their
partner, a friend or family member, or someone over whom one has governmental authority-- whether or not they are to bring into the world, and be
responsible for, another human life.
[edit on 10-3-2010 by The Parallelogram]