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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

Abortion: the definition of life

Being pro-life, especially in Bloomington, is not easy.

I feel as if the minute I open my mouth to say anything about abortion, I will be bombarded — told I am anti-feminist, that I’m narrow-minded, backward, unsympathetic toward the plight of impoverished women and in general a nasty Bible-thumper who smells like old gym socks.

So it surprised me when I saw the advertisements for the “Abortion: America’s Holocaust” seminar.

Maybe I should say here and now that there is a big difference between someone who is pro-life and someone who believes it is OK to harass women in abortion clinics,tell them they are selfish whores, endanger doctors who administer abortions and declare that all pro-choice advocates are going straight to hell.

Those are the kinds of people that make me want to upend a fork and slowly sink my head into it.

However, I am glad that IU has chosen to bring someone on campus that’s an advocate for the pro-life agenda.

Abortion is not about one single person. It is about two people, and while the choice should be up to the mother, none of the options should be death.

Here is where people stop me. “It’s basically just a clump of unfeeling cells,” they say. “It’s not even a fully developed person. No harm is done.”

Well, then, leaving all the moral arguments of “they have souls” and “they feel pain” out of the picture and simply speaking biologically, what constitutes a fully developed person?

Babies, the minute they come out of the womb, are certainly not grown adults.

Toddlers are not developed. Heavens, I’m not even a fully developed adult yet.

What is so essentially different about being inside the womb versus being outside of it?

What magical process happens within the seconds of a child’s birth that turns them from “an unfeeling clump of cells” to “a fully developed human being”?

Biologically, a baby is a human being during all stages of pregnancy. Scientifically, a fetus’ processes and basic functions are the same as any adults. And morally, their lives are just as important as the mothers’.

Then I get stopped again. “What about the mothers who can’t raise their children? It’s completely insensitive to say that a woman who aborted her child didn’t do it for the right reasons.”

I agree. The idea that someone could even for a minute judge a woman who has had an abortion makes me want to vomit.

However, there is always a better solution. My mother works in a post-abortion ministry through our church, and not a single woman who has come to her has said that abortion was her only option. In many ways it is just the simplest.

There are always resources, always people willing to help these women when money, family and life fail them. But to me it seems they’re hidden behind a wall of holier-than-thou pro-lifers who would sooner condemn than aid.

Abortion has never been and will never be as black and white as we hope. However, in my own personal experience with it, I have only ever seen it bring more harm than good.

So I’m glad that “Abortion: America’s Holocaust” is coming to IU. I hope it will inform and enlighten.

Ultimately I hope there will no longer be a need for seminars like it and that abortion will finally be finished.

­— ewenning@indiana.edu

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