So,Do I Abort?

In the United States it has dichotomized their politics. The Liberals style themselves as Pro-Choice, apparently a politically correct term for Pro-Abortion, while the Conservatives are considered Pro-Life, a safe term for Anti-Abortion. In Africa it is not such a big campaign platform—simply because it is considered an open-close case. Outside the corridors of power and into the streets and alleys, abortion finds its friends in backstreets and the debate on it rages on before reaching a cul-de-sac. In religious circles, many frown upon the act and assume a high moral ground aborting the debate on a potentially divisive matter. Yet abortion also has its champions in the pews and church rolls. This fact makes the abortion debate tricky—for it is not considered a matter where the Christian can advance an unquestionable opinion. “Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.” Ronald Reagan. Perhaps in this is presented the greatest predicament of this debate. Who exactly makes a decision for the unborn? Certainly the born have a conflict of interest and the unborn have an interesting conflict. Dictionary.com defines abortion thus: the removal of an embryo or foetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy. Or, any of various surgical methods for terminating a pregnancy, especially during the first six months. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (s.v. "Abortion"), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has defined abortion as "the expulsion or extraction of all (complete) or any part (incomplete) of the placenta or membranes, with or without an abortus, before the 20th week (before 134 days) of gestation. Moralists view this as murder and argue that intentionally setting out to flush out a developing being is inconsistent with theology and incongruent with man’s laws. Of course this school of thought maps life as that whose starting point is conception. Invoking God’s Sacred law and man’s common law, this argument resonates well with the Christian and the moralist. It is an idea they benchmark on that divine instruction that what God has put together let no man put asunder. And the import? God has united the body and His breathe in the living being. As such, man cannot purport to separate the two.Expectedly, some disagree. ‘No woman wants an abortion. Either she wants a child or she wishes to avoid pregnancy.’ Author unknown. The Pro-Abortion brigade argue that abortion has little to do with religion. They believe abortion to be a matter of situational ethics. That nobody ever sat down and set abortion as one of their life goals. That abortion is circumstantial and not a thing of choice. They trace the origin of life at birth. The argument then is that nobody is killing anybody because quite simply, nobody ever killed what did not live. Here cases are often presented of those who have been forced to this situation by one reason or another.An attempt is also made to extricate the Holy Writ from the intricate affairs of human existence.That there are many principles of decision making; Personal Experience, Situation Ethics, Tradition etc bolsters this reasoning, rendering a Biblical explanation just as infallible—or fallible—as the other principles. There is a flawed opinion that abortion should be legalized in certain situations and illegalized in others. This approach is funny because it seeks to correct a societal ill by creating another ill-imbalance. When the handlers of women who have conceived due to rape and other such revolting acts argue that abortion is the way forward, they expose their incompetence and lack of depth. A failed social support system and emotional regeneration cannot be cured by the doctor’s pill or the surgeon’s scalpel. The irony in this thinking is that they suggest that this will help the victim. The real problem after such ‘social ills’ is the mental state and that is not something one can ‘flush’ out. Abortion happens anyway. The proponents of abortion can be quite blunt. The latest is an admission on their part that maybe the debate should move to how to make abortion safer and less mysterious. Their premise is quite simple .In countries like Kenya, hundreds of young ladies stuck between the reality of aborting dreams and aborting life invariably choose to abort life. The logic here is quite simple-both its strength and its weakness. Let us legalize abortion so that we can control how it is done. This is not very funny to the opponents of abortion. That abortion happens anyway is reason to move first and weed out the practice. Legalising a wrong just because it happens may have a spiraling effect on society. The argument is that heroine and mandrax peddlers and pushers may suddenly feel the need to stimulate debate for legalization. Prostitution already has reaped the benefits of such skewed reasoning in varied parts of Europe and Africa is fast being swallowed up. Abortion is a societal ill and allowing it because it is happening is scoring an own goal. In the debate on abortion, it may be worthwhile to define who a person is because secular humanists and religion are divided on the issue. For the law makes provisions for human rights and the term ‘human’ is often used as a synonym for person. Such a course is not easy to pursue seeing as it is at the very heart of the debate. Do people get to enjoy rights right from the womb or outside the womb? On which side of the womb do human conventions and the principles of natural justice apply? Is the growing ‘organism’ in the womb there at the mercy and pleasure of the host—read mother—or the host is obligated by law to take care of it? These questions-the answers to which are difficult to agree on without inviting theology-form the heart of this conflict. But maybe the debate on abortion has been made difficult by the distinctly male opinions floated on it. Women-most of them-would not want to kill their children but are confused as to when their children become their children. Abortion must be looked at through the eyes of women who of course are the direct ‘victims’ of such debates. Abortion is, of course not legal in many African countries for the simple reason that Africa frowned upon such practices. In cultures where numbers are important, one cannot be allowed to make a decision of such magnitude as to whether or not to procure an abortion alone. That maybe is a useful template for the rest of the world. It follows then that if children continue to be viewed through the eyes of traditional Africa as community property then the whole community must without a shade of doubt accept the decision to abort. On that ,even the church seems to agree. That abortion is illegal except as when the life of the mother is in danger and the two cannot be safely delivered. Such a middle ground is what may allow public discourse on this to flourish. But extremists on both sides are not sleeping.