Ragin' Against Pro-Lifers

I was cruising around Facebook on the internets loaded on my computer (I have the WHOLE thing) and I saw this article. It's about a woman in Iowa, Christine Taylor, who fainted while pregnant and fell down a flight of stairs. She subsequently admitted to an emergency room nurse that she was having a very hard time with her life (due to money and marital problems) and had thought about either aborting the child or giving it up for adoption. As a result of this conversation the nurse alerted a doctor who also spoke with Mrs. Taylor and then had her arrested for "attempted feticide" which is a crime under Iowa law. Christine Taylor was held in jail for two days before being released due to her status as being in the second trimester and not the third, as the hospital believed. Apparently "feticide" can only be committed by trying to break your neck during the third trimester, and not the second.

Now, let me start off by saying I'm a pro-lifer who understands the need for choice. In short, I understand we are a nation of laws and freedoms, and some freedoms are necessary evils. I don't understand why anyone would want to abort a child unless there was some threat to the mother/horrible circumstance surrounding the conception.

That all being said what happened to this woman is unconscionable, and is sadly the preferred method of the pro-life movement. I would encourage anyone interested in this debate to watch the movie "12th and Delaware" for it's evenhanded portrayal of an abortion clinic and the "pregnancy center" across the street. The documentary shows several women who go to either place, and some that go to both. The strategy taken by the abortion clinic is just to lay out the facts of what they're going to do, but the position of the Catholic run "pregnancy center" was to tell you that what is in your body is a human life and urge you to bring it to term.

What is most interesting about the women who seek or get abortions is that they are not often concerned with the actual birth of the child, they are concerned with how they will care for the child should it be born. The "pregnancy center" does little to help out those seeking abortion besides giving them toys for a newborn.

If I were a pro-life leader this would be my new platform:

1) I would try to get adoption portrayed on major TV shows as something that a woman of any age can/should do with no consequence. The majority of people seeking abortion are not showing. Adoption is always an option, but let's face it, every time a woman walks down the street with a big belly every other woman asks her about how excited she is and if the child's room is ready. There is a huge stigma with putting a child up for adoption.

and

2) I would get away from the Republican Party. Work on getting childcare credits/more programs aimed at allowing for a working mother/2 parent working household to function. Just focusing on getting the child out of the mother denies the reasons for abortion.

So, next time you're standing on the side of the road holding a picture of an aborted fetus how about dropping the sign and volunteering some time as a big brother/big sister or giving money to some organizations aimed at helping care for kids. You'll probably be helping the cause more than locking up every pregnant woman in America ever can.