In international news, on August 8th, 2018 the Senate of Argentina (home of Pope Francis) has by a 38-31 vote, turned away a bill that would allow abortion-on-demand up to the 14th week of pregnancy (end of the first trimester). As a Catholic and a Conservative, I would consider this a victory over the likes of an evil practice that has denied the right to life to over 60,000,000 babies in the United States since Roe v. Wade (1973). However, as a Philosophy nut, I am obligated to look at both sides of the issue. The abortion debate is separated into two camps, Pro-life or Anti-abortion which is where I stand, and Pro-choice or from my perspective, Pro-death. In this article, I will address both sides of the debate as unbiased as possible.
On the one hand, you have those that believe abortion should be legal to provide for the general mental health and well-being of potential mothers who may be incapable of either supporting or raising a child or would not be able to receive any sort of assistance from an organization or even their own families. To them, abortion may even be a reasonable substitute for those who cannot afford a suitable means of birth control or contraception. There are also those that do not want abortion to be used as contraception, rather it should just be legal and available to those who either require it to sustain the mental and physical health of the potential mother, through the provision of a safe means of the practice. This would hence ensure the avoidance of the infamous coat-hanger abortions, drug overdoses to induce labor/miscarriages and other means of which may be detrimental to the health of the potential mother. To them, abortion is especially necessary in the cases of rape, incest, and certain medical situations where the potential mother's life may be at stake. Furthermore, they believe that it is better for a child to have never been born, than to grow up with a certain deformity or birth defect, or to grow up having never been wanted in the first place, or to be a financial burden on the parents (or parent) of that child, or be potentially traumatized via their separation from their parents (or parent).
On the other hand, you have those (such as myself) that believe abortion is immoral and inherently evil. To some of my readers who do consider themselves pro-abortion, you may question why such people exist. Why would some people be opposed to the views expressed in favor of abortion? In short, it deprives an individual of their right to life. And the right to life is the human right from which all other human rights proceed. It also denies couples that are financially stable enough to raise that child and are willing to adopt that child, providing them with a loving home.
From a more religious perspective, abortion denies one of God's most important gifts to mankind. The likes of which, even the angels are incapable. And that is the ability to create, not just life, but cities, works of art, literature, music, technology and the like. To many, the use of abortion as a means of contraception (abortion-on-demand) just provides an excuse to avoid the responsibilities that accompany the raising of a child. In many cases, children are a powerful motivator for parents to take up said responsibilities. And in the case of not being supportive of that potential mother who finds herself in the situation of an undesired pregnancy, abortion is not her only option and to treat it like it is, is-in-of-itself an immoral lie (that is not to say that all lies are immoral). There are also plenty of emergency pregnancy centers throughout the world that deal with such cases.
Many people who are pro-life, such as myself believe in the virtue of chastity and the practice of waiting until marriage to have sex, giving your whole self to your future spouse and having them as the only person to have seen you in that intimate a position. And in my opinion, one cannot be truly pro-life and not be chaste in practice. To state otherwise, that we should yield to our desires of the flesh, because it is healthy to do so, is denying the human capability (and we are all capable) of denying those desires in favor of the virtue of chastity, and out of loyalty to our future spouses. I can go further into this debate, addressing the issue of pre-marital sex and contraception as a whole, but I believe this article has stretched as far as needed (I could have added a few bible/catechism quotes, but maybe I'll add those in a later article). As for Argentina, we can rest assured that this evil practice remains illegal, at least until the next referendum.
For more on the subject of abortion, Prager U made a video on the subject.
