On Abortion.

Townhall.com columnist Jeff Emmanuel argues that Georgia Senate Bill 429, the so-called "Ultrasound Act," is a good thing, and I agree.

According to Emmanuel's article, SB 429 requires that, "As a part of the informed consent to the abortion procedure, a pregnant female desiring an abortion shall be offered an opportunity to view the ultrasound or sonogram image of her unborn child."

Emmanuel points out that this bill involves no coercion--it merely gives women the option to make a fully informed decision about abortion.

While I can't corroborate the specifics of the bill (which are somewhat irrelevant to my point), I do agree that the decision to abort should be as difficult as possible--not in the sense that a woman who has decided to abort should face obstacles in carrying out her decision, but rather, that a woman considering abortion must think through all the implications of that decision, and consider evidence from both sides.

The liberal, radical feminist stance on abortion goes beyond viewing abortion as an entitlement--in the strict sense that a woman who decides to have an abortion ought to have the final say in the matter--to almost laud abortion as an exercise of a woman's right to freedom. The problem I have with this is my intuition that abortion involves some sort of moral wrong. The pre-birth embryo, or fetus, or whatever, is human, as evidenced by its DNA, and clearly alive--it takes in nutrients and grows. My current position, therefore, is that abortion is a necessary evil--just as we accept it is not morally heinous to fight a war that has foreseeable civilian casualties, we accept that abortion is excusable, particularly in cases where the mother is in danger of dying or has been raped.

I'm not particularly satisfied with the flimsy analogy between war and abortion, but that's the position I would take today, if put in a legislator's shoes.

I'm not so sure about cases where those extraordinary circumstances don't apply; I would not vehemently oppose a ban on abortion with exceptions for those cases. Of course, I'm also a man, and would therefore face the possibility of having to carry and deliver an unwanted baby.

Challenges and comments would be appreciated.

Putting Your Feet Where Your Mouth Is, As It Were

According to TIME (March 6, 2006), "a U.S. artist has earned the wrath of anti-immigrant groups by designing shoes that, in theory at least, help illegals cross the border from Mexico. Brincos--Spanish for jump--feature ankle support for traversing treacherous terrain, a compass, and, on the insole, a map of the best route from Tijuana to San Diego. Made in China, handed out for free in Tijuana and sold for $215 in San Diego, the shoes were created by Judi Werthein to show how a product can mean different things in different economies and, as she puts it, 'to say certain things without being a politician.'" My thoughts: 1) Who would pay $215 for such shoes in San Diego? 2)Once again, I have sunk to cribbing interesting material from other publications, because I don't write down original interesting thoughts when they arise, and lose interest in recounting them later on. 3) What a terrible ending to this blog entry.