depolarization

a few years ago i stumbled on a chat site that i long since lost track of and don't recall its name. the profile section asked how members stood on a long list of issues. two possible answers were pro-life and pro-choice. out of curiosity i took a look at a bunch of profiles to see how those two compared. surprisingly many—perhaps a majority—had checked both.

strictly speaking that's impossible. one position is that abortion should be illegal, the other that it shouldn't.

apparently a lot of users either didn't know those definitions or didn't accept them.

i can see that. in general, i don't think abortion's a good thing, because all life is precious, but i don't want the law to take away women's liberty. if a woman decides she doesn't want to carry her pregnancy to term, it's her body, so why does government have any legitimate power to force her to deliver?

many pro-lifers cloud the issue with emotion-charged abstractions. they always call a pregnant woman a mother. an embryo or fetus is always a baby or child, sometimes but not always preceded by "unborn." they insist the unborn have the same right to life as the born, maybe even a greater right, because they're defenseless, so abortion is murder.

i don't want to rush thru this analysis or oversimplify it. the controversy clearly is one of the greatest in american history. i'll take it a little at a time.

feel free to comment.