To the Editor:
Becca Freeman's column "Incensed" was logical and well written, though it missed the boat on the issue of abortion. Many pro-lifers see murder when they see abortion, and pro-choicers see the practice of an American right, as though they were practicing civil disobedience.
Both groups are wrong.
When I see abortion, I do not see it as the exercising of some right, lest we celebrate Roe v. Wade on the Fourth of July. I see abortion as not something to be proud of but as the failure of American government and people. First, it is a failure of people to teach and practice safe sex as people still hide behind their blanket of abstinence-only morality while teenage girls have the baggage of an unwanted pregnancy thrown on them.
Second, abortion is the sign that America allows women to feel trapped. While whistling along with our limited government rhetoric, the government has not only let millions of Americans be uninsured, but has also allowed pregnancy to become a snare rather than an incredible event. With an unwanted baby, a girl in America looks forward to being rushed out of the hospital after giving birth, the possibility of alienation from friends and family, high day-care costs and medical costs and food costs. She has no guaranteed time off from work, no additional money to help pay for the additional costs or the day care that will allow her to keep working while raising a child. In this manner, abortion is like illiteracy, a sign that the people and government of the U.S. have failed to teach and failed to care for the people.
The conservatives in government sit around praising small government and a hopeful end to abortion, but fail to realize that their ideals are conflicting. It is big government, with social programs and guaranteed rights for mothers, that will allow Americans to accept an end to abortion, for it does not do so on the backs of women, but with the greatest amount of support possible for mothers.
Whether pro-life or pro-choice, we must get away from the mere sound bites of abortion and look at why America aborts almost 1.5 million babies every year. We must educate all Americans about safe sex and make pregnant women feel supported, not spurned by the government and people of America when they become pregnant. The day that there is no abortion will be the day that America will have served its citizens and taken the fear and traps out of bringing a small child into this world.
