Thoughts on Abortion

While perusing the blogosphere in the wee hours of the morning it occurred to me that the idea that a baby isn't a person until it has been born is quite simply medieval. I think so called "pro choice" Americans think that they are supremely progressive and that people who are pro life are sadly misguided and mired in the remains of stodgy, stuffy, old fashioned traditions or perhaps are just plain ignorant. For some reason this suddenly strikes me as utterly ludicrous. It could be that it is 5:40 in the morning and I haven't slept yet tonight (last night? oh well...) but I am suddenly struck by the irony of this. With modern science making it possible for babies at younger and younger gestational ages to survive premature birth, with the advent of 3D or 4D ultrasounds that allow us to observe babies as they move about, smile, suck their thumbs, and sleep inside their mother's wombs, even with all of this remarkable progress these "pro choice" proponents insist that it is the mother's choice to kill or not kill the child that counts. They insist in not so many words that a baby, unborn, has no intrinsic value, no rights, no desire to live or die. It is like saying "I can't see germs with my own two unaided eyes, therefore they neither exist, nor have any bearing or effect on my life at all." As if belief in germs (or in an unborn baby's person-hood) was mere superstition. We all know the end of the story with germ theory, why can't we (as a culture) seem to grasp that life, in any and all forms, has value... simply because it is. Life. It is a miracle that each and every one of us is alive today. Only the deeply wounded soul wishes that it was not and only because it has been so very badly damaged and is in such pain that all seems hopeless. Even then the body will revolt against the will and fight to survive. Everything that is alive struggles to remain so, no exceptions. It is a miracle I was conceived and survived to term, it is a miracle my mother and I survived birth, it is a miracle I didn't die of a childhood illness, it is a miracle I am alive today, a miracle I am eternally grateful for. Every child that is born will fight with all the power it has in it's tiny fragile body to survive, the unborn child is no different, for it is just as alive and present as any tiny baby could be. The only thing that separates these two babies is moments of time. In one moment you are unborn, the next you are born. Is it really so difficult a concept? You didn't change into something new when you came out of your mother's womb, it was just the first time anyone had ever seen your "you-ness". You were there for nine months growing and developing, a person the whole time, just so very small and voiceless. A person does not come into existence the minute they exit their mother's body, a person exists the moment they come into existence, as soon as all of the person's DNA is present and lines up the way it will continue to line up for the rest of their life, the moment they are conceived.