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Birthing a child is NOT the answer 
to EVERY unwanted pregnancy.

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Unfortunately, there is no simple, single answer to the problem of unwanted pregnancy.   The topic brings forth many different responses and there’s a huge array of factors to consider.   Here's a partial list of factors involved:

  Abortion is an extremely complicated  issue.

  The decision to terminate or not terminate a pregnancy produces numerous, significant, irreversible, long-term consequences.

  Terminating or not terminating a pregnancy is an extremely personal, highly emotional,  life-altering decision.

  For many women, terminating or not terminating a pregnancy is also a religious  decision.

  The context in which each pregnancy occurs is completely unique.

  Abortion raises countless, unanswerable, religious questions.

  In scientific terms, nobody can say when an individual human life begins.

  There are numerous, conflicting, religious beliefs regarding when an individual human life begins.

  In scientific terms, nobody can answer these two questions:  What is the nature of a fertilized egg?  What is the nature of a human being?  There are numerous, conflicting, religious beliefs regarding these two questions.

  Choosing to become a mother is, at minimum, an 18-year commitment.

  There is a enormous emotional cost to women who are forced to bear unwanted children.   

  There are  enormous financial costs women who are forced to bear unwanted children.  (Raising a child can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.)

  The vast majority of human beings want the right to make their own decisions regarding abortion and motherhood.

  Terminating or not terminating a pregnancy is a biological/medical decision.

  The woman herself and her family are best informed regarding the circumstance surrounding her pregnancy.

  The woman herself, her family, and her medical caregivers are the ones who know best how to respond to her pregnancy and what decision is the right one for her.

  Terminating or not terminating a pregnancy has tremendous, long-term, life-altering affects on the pregnant woman.

  Forced motherhood pushes long-term, negative physical, financial, emotional and psychological consequences onto women.

When you consider all these factors,  it's just not realistic to apply one and only one answer by force of law to every situation under all circumstances.   Forcing every woman to carry every pregnancy to term and birth still another unwanted child is about as practical and realistic as saying everybody must wear the same size shoes.   It also violates everyone else's God-granted right of self-determination. 

If you don't like abortions, don't have one.   

How about providing open, honest and complete sex education?   How about providing birth control to those who are sexually active?   How about simply telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth  about sex, conception, contraception, abortion etc.?   And how about simply sharing your beliefs and convictions and  inviting  other to join you?

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Outlawing Abortion would not stop Abortions 

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If you think outlawing abortion will stop abortions, you're living by an unrealistic fairytale. 

Did prohibition stop alcohol consumption?   NO!   

Do anti-drug laws stop drug use?   NO!   

Do anti-gun laws stop gun-related crimes.   NO!   

Do anti-gambling laws stop gambling?   NO!   

Do anti-sex laws stop sex?   NO!   

Will anti-abortion laws stop abortion.   NO!  

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Intentional pregnancy termination has been the "court of last resort" in family planning for centuries in all countries and in all cultures, regardless of its legal status.   If abortion became illegal, it would only change the way abortions would be performed.   The anti-abortion laws would stop competent, qualified, medical professionals from performing abortions in safe, clean, healthy, legal, emotionally supportive settings.    

Millions of desperate women would once again put their lives on the line and would seek abortions from incompetent amateurs.   For a wide variety of reasons, many women become desperate upon learning that they are pregnant and will go to any length, including risking their lives, in order to terminate their pregnancies.  

Regardless of the laws, the wealthy and the well educated (those who could afford to raise a child) will still have relatively easy access to abortion.   The poor, the drug addicts, the uneducated, the uninformed will not.   

The actions of the so-called "pro-life" leaders do not save any lives.   Their actions only transfer death onto different beings at different times and places, and, in the process, they precipitate poverty and misery onto millions.   

For example, in Brazil, where abortion is illegal, 3,000,000 illegal abortions are performed each year --- that's twice as many as in the United States in a country with only half as many people.   In addition, an estimated 11,000,000 Brazilian children have been abandoned and left to die or survive on their own in abject poverty, disease and neglect.   (See the video, Abortion  For  Survival, by The Fund for the Feminist Majority.)

Is it possible that the anti-abortion leaders actually believe outlawing abortion will stop abortions?  Anyone who says they believe outlawing abortion will stop abortion this is either lying,  terribly naive,  or completely misinformed.  Since the anti-abortion leaders claim to know what's going on, the only realistic conclusion is that they are intentionally lying to us.   Why would they lie to us?  For the answer, see Section  11, above:   The real intention of the anti-abortion leaders

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Every woman has the right to determine for herself 
whether or not she shall become a mother. 

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The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that pregnancy and potential motherhood are incredibly personal, private, religious and medical issues that must be addressed by the woman herself, within the context of her own needs, desires, conditions, and circumstances and with the support of family, friends and with the guidance of her medical and spiritual advisors.

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First and foremost, forced motherhood violates a woman's God-granted right of self determination.   Forced motherhood means her body belongs not to her, but to the state.   She becomes forced into servitude as a baby factory.  And below in horrifying detail is what that means:

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Bearing a child has a multitude of life-changing, irreversible, long-term ramifications for the woman, herself, and for everyone her life touches. 

The first and most significant effect of pregnancy is on the woman herself.     The decision to bear or not bear a child affects and alters:

    her life style, 

    her standard of living,

   her social life,

   her social status,

   her financial earning capacity,

   her actual income level,

  her financial well being

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    her family,

    her friends,

    her choice of friends,

    her relationship with the man who got her pregnant,

    and all the rest of her personal relationships,

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    her education level,

    her career,

    the entirety of the rest of her life, particularly

    the next 18 years required to raise a child;

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    her physical body,

    her physical beauty,

    her sex life,

    her sexual appeal,

    her emotional well-being,

    her psychological health,

    her physical health,

    and, it could even cost her her life.

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And if that's not enough, there are the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to adequately raise and educate a child, and the countless days and hours of tedious labor involved, not to mention that some women are required to give up their life's dream simply because they were pressured into sex that they didn't want by someone they really didn't care for that resulted in a pregnancy they were completely unprepared for.

Seeing the Obvious:   Is it not obvious that pregnancy and potential motherhood are incredibly personal, private, religious and medical issues that should be addressed by the woman herself, within the context of her own needs, desires, conditions, and circumstances and with the support of family, friends and with the guidance of her medical and spiritual advisors.

Why could anybody with any common sense and with even the slightest bit of concern for the pregnant woman's health and well being  propose anything else?.   They wouldn't.   Then who would and why?

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The Real Question in this Controversy Is:

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When do we, as a society, 
grant a developing, human, life-form 
the status of a separate, sovereign, individual 
human being and accorded him or her full human rights?

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What is the answer to this question?   There are many opinions, but nobody has the one and only answer.    Who can say he or she is right and everyone else is wrong?  

History does give us a clue to what is a workable solution:   Any time any government has attempted to interfere with a woman's right to intentionally terminate her pregnancy, a civil war has broken out with repressive police power on one side and the citizens on the other side secretly defying authority.   And while the war raged,  abortion continued unabated.  

Church and State -- A Proposal of Marriage:   When the promoters of forced motherhood speak in the halls of our government legislatures and propose making their personal religious beliefs (about abortion, sex, etc) the laws of the land, they are actually attempting to force all “non-believers” to practice someone else's religion.

Another Lesson from History:   As anyone who has studied history can tell you, the marriage between the Christian church and secular governments has produced a 2000-year-long, bloody legacy of intolerance, intimidation and harassment, intentional deception,  lies of omission,  political and sexual repression,  heterosexual and homosexual hypocrisy,  religious and racial bigotry,  egocentric chauvinism, oppression of women, political tyranny and subjugation,  violence, vandalism, arson, and murder.    

And if that’s not enough, they claim their leader to be infallible, they claim exclusive access to God, and they base their entire anti—abortion campaign on an absolutely unprovable, Medieval fairytale about God doing a conception magic act.

The evidence indicates that the fundamentalist Christian leaders who are spearheading the anti-abortion movement are keeping with their historic tradition.

To escape this kind of religious tyranny is the very reason this country came into being as well as the reason our Constitution includes a guarantee of religious freedom and the separation of church and state.

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The Bottom Line:

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