ABORTION

La Bona has inquired on my views on abortion La Bona's comment. He wrote:

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"I personally see abortion as a NECESSARY EVIL and that unwanted pregnancy is not only a personal problem and it is also a very real problem for the society at large.

Do you think it is right to burden say a 15 years old school-going girl with a new life when she is yet to have any economic mean to sustain herself and obviously, most girls of her age are not mentally ready for a family life. Furthermore, is it fair to rob her of her career, aspiration, dream etc., in the name of preserving a life that is yet to be fully developed."
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Well; I can agree that abortion is evil, though not a necessary one. I also partially agree that an unwanted pregnancy CAN be both a personal problem as well as a societal one. It is a mistake to conclude, however, that unwanted pregnancies are only problems; they can also sometimes be blessings and opportunities in disguise -both personally and socially.

The argument that a teenager should have an abortion because "she doesn't have the economic means to sustain herself" is baseless, at least in the United States. There are literally thousands of programs at the federal, state, local, religious, and private levels to sustain and support families in need.

The argument that a teenager should consider having an abortion if she is "not mentally ready for a family life" is also somewhat unclear. Does this line of reasoning mean to argue that it would do more psychological harm for a teenager to have an unwanted baby than the memories, remorse and heartache that many women experience after an abortion that haunts them for the rest of their life; or does it argue that the child born to the teenager "not mentally ready for a family life" would endure lifelong mental suffering if born to such a mother? Again; both logic and experience say that this is not necessarily so. One would do well to remember that until the twentieth century most mothers became so as teenagers.

Finally; the argument that the unwed teenager should consider an abortion because having a child would "rob her of her career, aspiration, dream etc., in the name of preserving a life that is yet to be fully developed." is also not well developed. Thousands upon thousands of teenage mothers have not only finished high school but gone on to get advanced degrees and establish professional careers. Logic and experience again show us that being a teenage mother makes education and a career much more difficult to attain, but not impossible.

Even if it is agreed that in a specific case a teenager having a baby would experience economic, social, and psychological stresses the question ultimately comes down to this: Does the ends justify the means? If you, like La Bona, feel "that it is not fair to burden a school girl in the name of preserving a life that is yet to be fully developed" then what you are really saying is that: The ends justifies the means. If it could be proven, for the sake of argument, that children born to teenage mothers actually experienced economic prosperity and psychological contentment, and that abortion ultimately led to economic and psychological disaster; most abortion proponents would remain proponents. Conversely; if the opposite could be proven most anti-abortionists would remain so because to them: The ends does not justify the means.

I believe that abortion is inherently wrong and a tragedy. Even if it were true that unwanted children and their mothers usually live undesirable lives. That, in itself, is not necessarily an argument for abortion as per the maxim:"Two wrongs don't make a right." Of course my lines of argument, though valid, are over-simplified and not fully developed here because I have neither the time nor the inclination to argue the abortion issue. Minds much clearer and more studied than mine have written on both sides of this issue for years and will do so for years to come. I leave it to the reader to study further the validity and basis of their point of view on abortion and the courage to change it if logic dictates that necessity.