Trying to Understand the Abortion Issue...Ugh.

The cursor on the computer screen blinked at me:  Blip. Blip. Blip. Blip.

"abortion"  Enter.

I get a thrill in libraries.  So many possibilities.  So much to learn.  Sitting at the computer, casting a line, sorting through options, and making some big catches is always a worthwhile hunt.  Not making a catch the first time through my search is just as invigorating.  I hunker down and narrow in.  I scribble down the cryptic call letters on the little scrap of paper until I'm ready to go on the next level of the hunt.  This is so different than my book searches on Amazon.  The air smells like pages and leather and ink.  Rows of wood shelves full of real life books that I can touch, flip through, and examine stand tall and stately around me.  I find my row, getting closer, then the general area, the 700s, the 750s, the 754s, the 754.29s.  There they are.  Trouble is, my growing thrill is being matched in magnitude by a growing forboding in my gut.  What I'm after today is something I'm not sure I really want to find.

There's an assignment in my spirit that I have to pursue.  I can't not do it.  I'm doing research on abortion.  Yuck.  Does anyone on either side of the issue really want to really think about it?  I think that's part of the problem, though, so I'm going to find out the facts and figure out the origins of it and of our current popular thought on the matter, as well as all the legal and constitutional implications.  I say popular thought, but I'm not too sure on that either.  Is abortion popular?  I have a sneaking suspicion that if asked, not about the glossy labels like "choice" and "rights," but if asked about abortion, plain and simple, most people would say they prefer it didn't happen.  Or in the case of pro-choice folks, they'd probably say they wish it didn't need to happen.  Let's just put it this way: it's not pleasant.

I am pro-life.  I like life.  It's good.  So I will try to chronicle my research experience and my findings themselves, but I do not intend to be a flaming, raging, argumentative, judgmental virago.  There are plenty of those in the debate already.  (That is, I won't be judgmental in the irrational, non-compassionate way; obviously, one must draw conclusions, or, make judgments.)

I want to know the history of abortion, the legal fight(s) for or against it in history, how it came to be what it is in popular opinion today, the basis for the Roe v. Wade case that made it legal (privacy, as it turns out; more on that to come), the exact biological process that results in a human being, and anything else that matters.

This much has come up for me.  Out there in the Big Debate World, it's complicated.  Very complicated.  If you have an ounce of compassion, you hurt for women who find themselves between a rock and a hard place.  You just do.  Of course, not all of them fit in that category either.

But here's the very little that I know so far:

I know women who have had them, and I love these ladies dearly.  I also know they don't like talking about it.

I know that abortion as "birth control" sounds extraordinarily drastic to me, purely from a rational perspective with very few emotions or moral platitudes involved. 

I know it's been asserted here and there that doctors who perform abortions are pretty much seen as "bottom feeders."  I would love to know more about why that is in a pro-abortion society and what makes a person choose that profession.  My understanding so far, though, is that it's an opinion held by other doctors, as all doctors vow to "do no harm."  That's actually something for me to look up.  Do abortionists have to be doctors? 

I know that there seems to be a massive dichotomy in the pro-life stance on fighting abortion.  On the one hand, pro-lifers assert that abortion should be illegal.  On the other hand, they also oppose many pro-choice programs that try to keep people from getting pregnant in the first place, like sex education (this includes, but is not limited to, abstinence), health care, and access to contraceptives.  I have a glimmer of an opinion on all that, but I just realize I need to know more about the facts all around.  Pro-lifers tend to be folks who think all that stuff should be less mainstream or, certainly, not pushed on single people.  After all, single people shouldn't be having sex.

And about that.  I know that recreational sex has become widely, rampantly acceptable to the point that it's almost no longer part of the argument.  My issue here is quite complex, and I'll get into it another time, but sometimes something can be best, even (gasp!) right, even if it seems archaic.  And it's weird to me how those having recreational sex without wanting a baby call getting pregnant an "accident."  Really?!  How do you figure?  Did you or did you not have sex?  All of us modern, free-thinking, strong-opinioned people would do ourselves a favor to look at it intelligently and call it what it is.  "Accident" is not the word you're looking for.  "Oops" doesn't quite cover this one.

I know that my tone in that last paragraph unsettled some people.  I will say again that for those in a pickle, it's a big deal and my heart goes out to them.  It's not easy.  Please always hear my heart for people in all this. 

I also know that people are not in a pickle because of some "tissue."  A random mass of cells is not necessarily an inconvenience.  A baby is.  They're not trying to escape a tissue or mass of cells.  They're trying to escape a baby.  Where does the line get drawn?  Oh, how I'm encountering various answers to that question.  It's mind-boggling.

What a preliminary hodge-podge of thoughts this is!  I hope to pass on my findings as I go, and with two little ones and music leadership and all of life's great fullness, I'm sure it will be somewhat slow going.  I have been interested to find in three libraries here in Burlington-area, Vermont, that not one abortion book on file has a pro-life leaning.  Fine with me, as I'm looking for real understanding.  That does mean, however, that I do actually need some books of the pro-life leaning, so I get to request them of my libraries who will very soon carry them after all. 

I am currently looking for the ones written by Norma McCorvey who was "Jane Roe" in the Roe v. Wade case.  (She's now pro-life.)  And what fun it'll be to read through the judges' official opinion statements on that case.  Their ruling on the basis of privacy certainly calls me to want to know more, though, so I will.

And now for my final, burning questions:  How does one get to the root of the problem?  How does one meet that need so that abortion would not be "necessary," as many call it?

Every time I keep digging on issues and problems like this, I always come down to a root issue of humanity that can only be answered through the Kingdom of God, which is about relationship, nurturing, trust, responsibility, and knowing Yahweh.  As I posted months ago about how politics is not the answer, I realize again that there is more than one battleground from which to approach such issues. 

As I follow Yahweh's leading on this, I look forward to uncovering some interesting things that grieve Him but that we, or maybe just I, may have overlooked, on both sides of the issue.  It's His heart I'm after. 

Good thing I love libraries.