Abortion: both sides kind of right 1.11.02

The subject of abortion has reared its ugly head in Council Bluffs with the decision of the Planned Parenthood office on N. 16th to offer abortion services.
Letters have been written. Opinions have been expressed. A small group of protesters has occasionally stood their ground outside Planned Parenthood and good for them. Peaceful protest is essential to our American way of life.
None of this is a surprise. People feel strongly about abortion on both sides. Most sensible people know to avoid talking about it to avoid a hassle. Lord knows I should.
I have gone seven months without mentioning abortion. As a columnist at ISU, I mentioned it once a month, but those were highly politicized times. With our "anything goes" attitude, riling the masses was as common as ordering pizza.
Here in the professional portion of my career, I haven't brought up abortion because there seemed to be little point. What could be achieved?
The sides are adamantly divided, imbued with a moral sense of righteousness and thoroughly determined to win at all costs.
Since there is not likely to be any kind of end to the debate let alone consensus, it would be more trouble than it is worth to take sides publicly, right?
That, however, is the wrong attitude to take. Not just for social commentators, but for all of us.
As Americans, we should all be in the business of encouraging debate. It is our birthright. It is our national credo. It is the First Amendment to our beloved Constitution.
The more hopeless an issue, the more endless the debate, the less likely unity of various positions seems, the more important it is to debate that issue because there is a principle at stake.
Did the Suffragettes suffer force feedings for nothing? I think not. At one point, the cause of women's equality seemed about as likely to work as Anna Nicole Smith.
Today, women have the same right to choose not to vote as men. Ah, sweet liberty.
People do switch sides. Key people. Religion in public schools, gay rights, immigration, the legalization of hemp, Coke vs. Pepsi, all issues that have changed and have changed us in return.
I will eventually get to my position on abortion, but right now I want you to listen to an idea that could come from anyone on either side.
The problem with the entire abortion debate is that both sides of the mainstream debate are kind of right. I say mainstream, because without question, people who kill doctors and blow up clinics are wrong and no one should condone that.
Pro-lifers are right when they say each abortion represents a potential human life that will never have the chance to be. Pro-choicers are right when they say a woman has a right to choose what happens to her own body.
The question is one of how we perceive the issue and that comes down to moral absolutes. Are there any? Are there just some?
No one LIKES abortion just as no one LIKES laser eye surgery or colon examinations. But we like knowing the procedures are there if we need them.
It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where every pregnancy was a planned and every fetus became a child that was wanted and loved.
Unfortunately, that is not the case and back when abortions were illegal, they were still performed. A recent letter writer mentioned abortionists. Abortionists were people who performed abortions in the dark days before trained doctors could do so legally.
The letter writer referred to women dying of botched procedures, something that has happened so rarely since legalization as to be a non-issue. Death was the issue before Roe vs. Wade because a woman had no idea who was performing the procedure on her. That has changed today.
Women performed abortions on themselves and would again without legal abortion. No matter how many laws are passed to prevent it, abortions will be performed.
It is true that untold numbers of fetuses have not come to term, but untold lives have been saved thanks to legalized abortion.
It would be audacious to claim there is no human potential in every fetus. Of course there is potential. There is also potential in every sperm and ovum. The question is not about what could be, but what is. What is a person? Who counts and when do they start counting? That is when this whole thing turns into a religious argument about the soul. When does it enter the body? At conception? At three months? DOES it enter? Do we even have souls and if so do they make us human?
Anciently, the Greeks believed a fetus had no soul until the Quickening when the baby began kicking. Seems primitive now, but the idea of "conception" is a relatively new one only modern science has been able to confirm under the microscope.
What if science proves Hindus correct and the soul is something that exists in everything in small measure like an energy field that separates and combines as needed? What happens to reproductive rights then?
Sound ridiculous? It should. Abortion should be treated like any religious issue and that means the choice to practice a belief must be left to the individual.
-Greg Jerrett is Daily Nonpareil staff writer. He may be contacted at 328-1811 ext. 279 or by e-mail at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com.