A hard topic

     One topic that most people don't like to deal with is abortion. However it is one of the major selling points of any presidential hopeful. I just don't understand how you can stand on a podium and tell someone that what they are doing is evil, and that God hates them, when you don't know any of the facts. For a man to stand up and say it is even worse because lets face it, child rearing still falls mainly on the female, and certainly the 1st 9 months are her problem. I understand that abortion in most cases is not the best alternative, but can't people handle this better.
     How much time did Jesus spend picketing, I'm sure if he were alive today he wouldn't be standing outside of a clinic with disgusting pictures of aborted babies on signs. I think that Moses, Abraham, Muhammad, and any other prophet had better things to do. Maybe instead of holding up hateful signs you should offer the woman entering the clinic financial help, maybe you could offer to adopt the child. I know some people aren't in a position to do this, but could you buy her a cup of coffee, or offer a shoulder to cry on after her procedure. In most cases the woman didn't want an abortion, she saw it as her only way out.
     Obviously sometimes an abortion is called for, in cases of tubal pregnancy, or other life threatening emergencies. Sometimes a woman who has been on fertility treatments gets pregnant with 6+ babies, now some families can handle this, but to insure the best outcome for the children sometimes the doctors do a selective abortion.
     One of the more controversial reasons for abortion is cases of mental/physical defect. Me and Allie have spent much time working in group homes for the handicapped. The stories the higher functioning residents can tell you will terrify you. Stories of rape, beatings, and starvation are the lighter stories. Some residents I have talked to were tied to a bed in their own feces for days, and subsequently had to have the maggots flushed from their bedsores. These are just the stories that the residents who can talk will tell you, one of the girls I worked with clawed her own eyes out, but she was non-verbal, so who knows what happened. I understand that some, maybe most people with a mental handicap don't live this kind of life, at least I hope they don't. In some cases the child may have no chance to ever have a life without pain or suffering, in cases such as Tay Sachs, anencephaly, or trisomy 13. I don't know if I could have an abortion under these circumstances but I could certainly understand why a woman would choose that route.
     The other case that sometimes makes people accept abortion is rape or incest. In these cases I believe that it is atrocious to tell a woman she is evil for not being able to deal with a pregnancy. Not to mention raising the baby if she doesn't opt for adoption. In cases of incest the woman may fear deformity or retardation, with rape they may fear that the child will have the same tendencies. Maybe she just doesn't want to look down every day and see growing evidence of what she went through. Or they may hate their child, what if he/she looks like their father. If they opt for adoption they will have a life of wondering where their child is now, did they do the best thing?  No one can judge, not even if they have been in that situation, every case is different. The last thing a victim needs is people piling hate on them, save that for the rapist.
     I believe that a baby is a person as soon as it implants, before that an IUD or the Plan B pill will take care of the problem. Some even see these options as abortion. I can't argue with them, but I can say that it doesn't help to be mean, hate seldom changes minds. Understanding, better use of birth control, sexual education, education on abstinence, and counseling are way better tactics. (Noticed I didn't say abstinence alone, if you think that works you weren't a normal teenager).



     Hopefully in the next few weeks we can attend a few churches and get back to the basics. On Easter we will be attending Jimmy Swaggart's church in Baton Rouge for Camp Meeting, that should be an interesting one :) Sorry we got off track, it's been a busy few weeks...