Attempting to find some common ground in the abortion debate.

While I recognize there are important presuppositions that need to be assessed in this debate I think as a beginning we should grant some level of respect to those who disagree with us simply for the sake of carrying on a rational conversation and because every person is valuable because they are made in the image of God and should be treated as such. So in an attempt to avoid undue anger and insults I think we can find some common ground in our motivations for being pro-life or pro-abortion.
Those on the side of pro-abortion would argue that it is a woman's right to do what she wants with her body and also that they are concerned for women's health. On the side of the pro-lifers is also the belief that women have rights but also that the young human life inside her also has rights. So we both agree that there are certain things that people are allowed to do. Also on the pro-life side is the belief that women's health should be a priority but also that the health of the young human life inside her be considered, and even be granted the same measure, because all human life is valuable.
Maybe if we begin by recognizing that we both agree that rights are important and that we both are concerned with people's health, perhaps then we can begin to discuss the issues.

From here we can move on to disagreements about such things as when human life and human rights begins. By using some common sense I think we can establish that what we're talking about at human conception is both human and alive. There are only so many qualifying categories and so either it's alive, dead, or some kind of inanimate object. Progress in science has revealed to us a world of molecules and atoms and protons and so defining what life is can be complicated considering all the intricacies and philosophical presuppositions. But generally we don't qualify things like rocking chairs and fence posts and coffee cups as alive or dead, they're just sitting around kinds of things. Things that are alive move and eat and metabolize, and we can always recognize something that is dead by the fact that it used to be alive but now isn't.
In human conception there is an egg--which by common sense is a living thing--and a sperm--which by common sense is a living thing (and I know of no successful conception using dead ones) so do you think the product of conception is alive or dead? If it continues the natural process from conception eventually is born an infant human child--which supposes that it was a living human entity earlier on because nothing else is ever born a living human child except living human children.
I think some understanding can be found considering that it was more of a mystery what exactly happened at conception before the science and technology caught up, but the sciences have really caught up so that nobody can deny anymore that the product of a human conception is obviously human and alive. Anyone who says differently is very under-educated on these things or depending on an education from a long time ago, or they're in some kind of strange denial of the obvious, or they might be replacing common sense with politics because it suits their purpose. No matter what your motivations you can't argue reasonably that anytime between conception and birth it's something other than living and human or that there's a point in time when suddenly it becomes alive and human. Everything is alive before the conception, everything is alive at and during the conception, and everything is alive after the conception and either it's human or it's something else--and nobody reasonable is really claiming that it's something else.

Some quick thoughts on Abortion in South Dakota

So I'm a little more than slightly confused about some perspectives on the abortion issue. One argument I keep hearing from the pro-abortion side is that if abortion is illegal then women will go back to some primitive, non-medical procedure--coat hangers were even mentioned by one person I talked to. I find that kind of thinking disturbing and also unreasonable. Really it's like saying, "We should give automatic weapons and armor piercing bullets to criminals because if we take away efficient methods of killing then they'll just go back to using blunt objects to murder people with."
Then there's the argument that there's already too many people around and not enough resources so we don't need any new babies. This is another argument that I find rather disgusting and also very unreasonable because really if we're so concerned about our natural resources and the answer is to thin out the population then why not just kill off whoever we want? I mean really, maybe we could just kill all the old people because they're on their way out anyway and new babies have more potential, or maybe just kill off all the poor people, or all the rich people, or all the blacks, or all the whites, or the Jews or Irish or Atheists, or everyone from West Virginia? Seriously, there's better ways to fight the problem of poverty than killing people. Don't get me wrong I think conservation of natural resources is important but it's not as though the United States is lacking in resources and we're going to fix the problem by killing off certain groups of people.
There are even others still who would argue that it is a woman's right to do with her body whatever she wants to, that it is her choice. That might be fine and well but does she have the right to do whatever she wants to her baby's body? And just how far does "choice" extend? A person can choose to take another human persons life but such actions have consequences, they would be arrested and charged with murder. But as for the womans choice, I think her choice extends as far as her right to do what she wants with her own body, meaning that she can choose to have sex at the risk of getting pregnant. Getting pregnant is the result of an action and the "choice" lay in her choosing the action, not the consequences. If her rights included the taking of a human life because it is too physically or emotionally difficult to support (or too inconvenient) then why not take her child's life when it's two yrs old, or eight or ten or seventeen? Maybe she would want to give it a try and then find out it's too difficult when the child is in high school and get rid of it then.
Yesterday I heard someone say that a woman shouldn't have to suffer the trauma and humiliation of having to report a rape to the authorities. Well, I don't think she should have to suffer any trauma or humiliation either and I wish that rape didn't happen at all. It's a horrible thing to happen to anyone and the very reason I have been an overprotective big brother to my little sister for so many years. But don't you think that justice should be dealt upon the rapist and not upon an innocent human being? If a thief broke into your home you wouldn't pick out just any random person to punish for the crime would you? No, you'd go after the criminal, likewise, there's no sense in punishing an innocent human person for a crime that they didn't commit. Not to mention getting a rapist off the streets so that they don't do the same thing to someone else.
Now I know this isn't an easy answer, and it's a very emotional one and I don't think that it should be an easy answer. Rape is a horrible deplorable thing and I wish that it never happened to anyone. I think it would probably be the hardest thing in the world to suffer through and I can't even begin to image, but it is a human life we're talking about and I think that that should count for something, don't you?

If you believe in Evolution, that is, in an unbroken line from molecule to man with no personal beginning then you might not understand what I'm saying. Because if God doesn't exist and people are nothing more than meat with a mind then there's no such thing as morality and right and wrong are dissolved into mere "preference" leaving us with no reason why we shouldn't just kill the weakest, or whomever we want, in order to ensure the survival of the species or so that the dominant members of the species can dominate, or just out of desire. But if you have a Christian view of man, that is, that man has intrinsic value because he is made in the image of the eternal-personal God, then you have a foundation for ethics and a reason for saying that a human person has value no matter how rich or poor the family is that they are born into.