While the Moderates Were Sleeping...
Your President declared January 19, 2003 to be "National Sanctity of Human Life Day". Of course, next week is also the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, just so everyone is clear what issue we're talking about here.

So, let's have the discussion that apparently everyone in Washington is afraid of: Personally, I'm morally horrified by the idea of abortion. One might argue that, at the other end of the age spectrum, it's the moral equivalent of mercy-killing a sick, old relative who's nursing and care needs have far exceeded the family member's capacity to support them. The difference being that you have to look Uncle Jethro in the eye when you pull the plug on his respirator. Do fetuses even have eyes?

Of course, that's because I'm presuming that life begins at conception. Others don't. And, at this point, I don't think we're ever going to find a happy medium between those two beliefs. But, there's a difference between what I believe and how you govern a country.

IF the government makes abortion illegal because they feel it is morally and ethically wrong, then they must, in turn, provide an adequate support network for unwanted or unintended pregnancies, such as universal prenatal care and eliminating the atrocities that are committed in the foster care system. Otherwise, to insist that this child be born to a mother who won't keep or support it and then release it into the jaws of the failed child care system is tantamount to condemning it to a long, slow, painfully abusive life, with potentially dire consequences for anyone who comes into contact with this person in their later life.

So, since governing a nation ultimately boils down to issues of human calculus, abortion should really be looked at in these terms: the life of one unwanted, uncared-for unborn vs. the lives of countless others who could be irreparably damaged through contact with the emotionally & physically scared person that said unborn has a high probability of growing into.

In the end, until the child support system is fixed, legal abortion is the civically expedient and, ultimately, politically ethical choice to make.

Which is why I'm pro-choice.

And human calculus like what I just described above is why I will NEVER run for public office.