Abortion

I don't fully understand why this issue is so contentious, but people go crazy over it, a few to violent degrees. My own view begins at the basic freedom we have, the right to live. This is the one necessary for all of the other natural rights we've come to accept. I could get into the fact that rights are not "natural" but rather a generally accepted platform on which we base our society, but I'll use the common terminology for this. The right to life is conferred at birth under our current view of things. However, this is an arbitrary rule. One is a human being when he leaves the womb and comes crying into the world, but one is not a human being the minute prior to that when the only basic difference is that he is still inside. That is absurd to me. If the argument is that it is dependant upon the mother at that point, then why is a child not disposable in the first few years of life when it would most certainly die without care? But perhaps you agree with me and are opposed to late term abortions. Where is the line drawn? If it is essentially the same being at eight and a half months, is it the same at eight, seven, six, five or one? If not, why not? Why do we think it appropriate to draw a line on the beginning of human life, even in its earliest stages? Most people in America are Christians, therefore some of those who favor abortion rights believe in the soul. Are they arrogant enough to believe they know when the entity is endowed with the soul?

I do not believe in a soul myself, and I do not approach abortion from a religious perspective, though I do approach it morally. Life should be protected. That is my starting point. From that beginning I cannot rightly see an end where the destruction of a human life, even in its most simple form is appropriate. The sperm and the egg are different for those who would be smartasses about this matter. All eggs do not become fertilized and all sperm do not fertilize the egg, so these are not human life. Human life begins at the point the sperm fertilizes the egg. To argue that is to argue that a pregnancy in it's first few weeks is different from a pregnancy in its sixth month, and I find it hard to believe that a moral argument can be made that would demonstrate such a view to be correct. Brain activity? Bah! That's no more than a happy rationalization, another arbitrary line. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are our rights, and notice which is first. Without it the other two are impossible, and as enlightened as we have become we can still be incredibly callous. Abortion is one such example.