Children born in misery are worse than abortion

THE EDITOR: Here’s my 2 crix on the abortion debate. I’ve never bought the argument that a foetus is just tissue. A woman’s womb isn’t a Cracker Jack box — it only produces one thing, babies — so that’s what’s growing in there. And because I value human life so highly, I really find it a tragic when someone decides to opt for an abortion. But I’m not alone in that. I think the overwhelming majority of people feel that way — and I don’t mean only anti-abortion activists. People who choose to have abortions surely feel that way too. It isn’t a decision that is entered into lightly, nor one that has no lasting emotional toll. Bottom line is, nobody really likes abortion, anymore than they like any other very hard decision in life. But it is their decision.

So I really hate abortion. But know what I hate more? Children born into misery. Unwanted children, abandoned children, children born to unfit, unhealthy or unaware mothers due to lack of access to contraception or lack of knowledge on birth control options. In the Third World, children are born and die before they reach the age of four knowing nothing but pain and suffering. And why? No access to information on birth control, no access to birth control. And in the western world, children are also born to suffering and illness for the same reasons. It’s funny how the same people who want to promote abstinence and oppose condom handouts in schools are the same people that oppose abortion rights. And funny how the politicians who fight abortion rights are the same ones who are the first to make cuts to programmes that benefit the impoverished single mothers who opted to carry the child to term. Seems these dopes would be very good at oral sex, since they’re talking out of both sides of their mouth. If you oppose abortion, then take steps to curb unwanted and accidental pregnancies. Or shut up. But quit trying to externalise a view of the world that has only ever existed in your deluded childish fantasies.

And while I’m on the topic of deluded childish fantasies, I’ll touch on the Catholic Church who seems to be at the forefront of the opposition to abortion rights, yet there are the ones who have the inescapable stigma of a paedophile priests attached to their men of cloth. I’m sorry, but you guys don’t exactly have any moral high ground to preach and impose upon other people what you think is moral and what isn’t. And you don’t need to promote abstinence. People are born abstinent, and stay that way for quite a while. And people generally know when the time is right for them to explore the sexual dimension of their lives. So why don’t we stop acting like morons, stop making sex seem like anything more than the next, inevitable step in a human’s growth, and approach it realistically with information and discussion. In other words, it’s time to take sex out of the bedroom — and not just by doing it in the kitchen. The key to reducing the spread of STDs, unwanted pregnancies and abortions is information. Forewarned is forearmed, especially in foreplay.

ASHRAM  BEACHOO
Toronto, Canada