Abort, Retry, Fail?

It's a common political image among abortion-issue interest groups:

A woman gets up on stage, picks up a microphone, and, through tears, explains how she almost was never born. She explains that her mother was considering an abortion. There were medical complications with the baby, even complications with the mother. Both lives were in danger, and her mother has serious reasons to consider terminating the child's life. The woman reiterates that she was nearly never born.

Sounds like your typical pro-life speech. But here's the kicker: the mother had the abortion. That was the child before the woman speaking. Turns out, that woman is only alive because of abortion. She would not exist had her mother been forced to have the previous child, in part because, as it later turns out, her mother would not have survived.

I wonder if that's something pro-lifers ever consider; the people who exist because of abortion.

By pro-lifers, of course, I mean people who oppose the choice of abortion. That's right, not people who oppose abortion, people who oppose choice. They're not synonymous. You can be opposed to an abortion, never ever want to have one, but still support other people having the choice to do so; in other words, you can be pro-choice and anti-abortion. But that's not the case with pro-lifers. They're anti-choice altogether. Not only would they not have an abortion, they won't let anyone have one, no matter the situation, no matter the medical condition, no matter who they end up preventing from existing. The mother's health is of no concern, rape doesn't mean a thing, the quality of the life of the child is irrelevant. They only care that the child lives, not how.

But consider. Every single one of us exists because of a choice. Our parents could have chosen not to have us. Each living human being knows that he or she was born, not mandated by some sort of pro-life government law that insists all possible human beings be born.

In fact, there's potential for life all the time. Any two people could have a child at any moment. Does that mean that each unfertilized egg is a murdered life, an opportunity lost, an unborn Mozart? Or is that the beautiful thing about human life - that we don't just reproduce for the hell of it, that we are conceived and born intentionally.

Each person who comes into this world was created through choices. Someone chose to have intercourse. Someone chose to carry to term. The creation of life was a choice. No one was forced into being. And with abortion, no one is forced to be terminated. Pro-choice advocates are not looking to promote abortion, but they are looking to allow it to be an option.

Yes, we can look at every loss of potential life as murder. We can say, "Had so-and-so's mother had an abortion, he would have never lived to be the great person he was!" Sure, that's true. But isn't that the case with or without abortion? The cry can just as easily be, "Had so-and-so's mother never gotten pregnant, he would have never..." - it's the same story.

Abortion is not destroying lives that would have otherwise existed, because the creation of life should always be the mother's choice from the start. If you are willing to let a mother choose when to get pregnant, you had better be willing to let her choice when to have children. It's not murder to practice abstinence. It's not murder to have a miscarriage. Well, it's not murder to cancel the process and try again later.

Why should it be? Until that child is walking around, thinking and learning and growing, who is to say which baby has the right to live: the one currently being formed, or the one who comes after her, who wouldn't exist without abortion. It's just as tragic to abort the first life as it is to erase the second.

Either way, they're going to complain that potential was lost. Se be it. Would they rather live in a country where people choose which potential to keep, or a country where the government chooses for them?