Abortion, The Lifeline for Political Parties

Lifeline
J.McLaughlin Homepage
Abortion is a severe issue, nevertheless. It deals with two human beings, a mother and a baby. Traditionally, abortion is considered murder across the lines of all cultures. The perception of abortion as murder has changed in relatively recent times. Increasing sexual freedom and the possibility of having open sex outside the bonds of marriage and even having babies outside wedlock increased the frequency of unwanted babies. In older times, even if women and providers committed to abortions, those used to be done in complete secrecy, and no one dared to speak in its favor. With freedom of speech being recognized as a natural right, increasingly, more and more people started talking in favor of abortions.
Abortions became legal in most of the Western world, but the opposition never died. It went to the point where abortions are getting subsidized by welfare money. Government subsidies have made opposition to abortion even more intensified because subsidies include the taxes paid by opposers. As always happens in politics, this issue is also analyzed by the all or none principle. You are either pro-life or pro-choice. There are no middle ways. If you are pro-life, you cannot support choice at all, and if you are pro-choice, you cannot support life at all. It makes you feel as if life and choice are two opposite things. This whole mess gives the issue a wholly unrelated and purely political spin.
It is not the case that prolifers are against choice and prochoice are against life. It is just that they are being extremely polarized by political gimmicks. If you scientifically analyze the issue, it turns out to be multifaceted and highly complicated. It involves sensitive, critical, and complex issues like life, property rights, trespassing, eviction, death and viability, etc. The extreme pro-life position is that the fetus is alive as soon as conception happens, while the extreme pro-choice position is that even post-birth abortions are acceptable, as the baby has no rights. Both views look like complete nonsense, but they are still very popular. This is the magic of politics, indoctrination, and propaganda.
One fact that almost no one disagrees with is that a woman owns her body. The question is, does she have an obligation to carry a baby against her will and wishes? So, the debate relies a lot on relinquishing a woman’s property rights on her body for various reasons like the value of the life of a baby, voluntary intercourse or the tragedy of rape, threat to the life and health of the mother, and physical and financial burden. Abortion could often be the deciding factor in elections, especially if the race is close. Politicians and media gurus usually incite this controversy to earn the favor of people holding a particular viewpoint on this issue, one way or the other. It may not be decisive, but it can always be.
This issue has many aspects, such as nature, life, rights, burden, liability, and responsibility. Since we are talking about humans, nature is first and foremost. People are born with natural advantages and disadvantages, like being tall or short, intelligent or stupid, beautiful or ugly, etc. Similarly, men and women are also born with natural advantages and disadvantages. So far, men are not born with the ability to conceive a baby, carry a baby, and give birth to a baby. On the other hand, most women are born with these capabilities. Depending upon your perspective, childbearing is the natural advantage or disadvantage for both men and women.
These advantages and disadvantages mostly make men less concerned with the consequences of sexual intercourse, especially if it is outside wedlock. On the other hand, these factors make women more concerned about the consequences of outside the marriage intercourse, mainly because a baby outside the bonds of marriage is very likely to become the responsibility of the woman before birth and after birth. Women were very reluctant to have sexual intercourse in the past because it was considered immoral or even criminal, birth control was not available or hard to access and practice, the possibility of abortion was slim to none, and chances of social rejection and even criminal prosecution were very high, and since women mostly did not work bearing the financial responsibility of pregnancy, birth, and baby were nightmares.
The single most crucial factor that led to the current sexual freedom was birth control because not just women but even men can now avoid complicated consequences in most cases. You leave the bedroom and practically forget what happened without facing any fears and dangers. Sexual freedom made sexual intercourse outside the marriage more common. But this was not without consequences. It raised other problems, issues, and concerns, although its common occurrence mostly ended the stigma of sex outside the marriage. The problem was that accidents were still happening; as the old saying goes, the only way to not get pregnant was by keeping your legs crossed. The condom ruptured, birth control did not work, the man insisted on having sex without a condom, forgot to buy or bring the condom, Got too excited to wear condoms, etc.
So what if you still get pregnant even though now the moral and legal consequences of getting pregnant are near zero? Pregnancy still comes with lots of baggage. I am not ready for a baby. What should I do now?
This problem leads to an ever-increasing outcry for legalizing abortions. But there are some valid logical objections to it. One, as an adult, you must know that no matter what you do, the chances of getting pregnant never go to zero. Even failed tubal ligations happen. So, when you engaged yourself in sexual intercourse, you embraced that possibility. But the argument against this is that accidents happen or the babies may be a product of involuntary intercourse like rape. However, the accident is another possibility that all adults must be aware of. So, the arguments of ignorance and chance do not apply here, either. Rape remains an issue, though.