Why my support for abortion was based on love…and lies

January 24, 2013 (NCRegister) - When I was younger, I was always particularly shocked when I heard about societies where it was common to abandon or kill unwanted newborns. In college I once read a particularly graphic description of a family in ancient Greece "discarding" a newborn baby girl. I was shocked to the point of breathlessness. I was also horribly confused: How could normal people be okay with this, let alone participate in it? Nobody I knew would do that! Were people that different back then?!

Because of my deep distress at hearing of things like this, I found it really irritating when pro-lifers would refer to abortion as "killing babies." Obviously, none of us pro-choice folks were in favor of killing babies; to imply otherwise, in my mind, was an insult to the babies throughout history who actually were killed by their insane societies. We weren't in favor of killing anyone. We simply felt like women had the right to stop the growth process of a fetus if she faced an unwanted pregnancy. Sure, it was unfortunate since fetuses had potential to be babies one day, and we recognized that there was something special about that. But, alas, that was a sacrifice that had to be made in the name of not making women slaves to their bodies.

I continued to be vehemently pro-choice after college. Though my views became more moderate once I had a child of my own, I was still pro-choice. But as my husband and I began a religious search that led us to Christianity, we were increasingly put on the defensive about our views. One day my husband was re-evaluating his own pro-choice ideas, and he made a passing remark that startled me. He said:

"It just occurred to me that being pro-life is being pro-other-people's-lives. Everyone is pro-their-own-life."

 

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