Abortion in America is the ultimate hot button issue. If you are opposed to continued legalization you can, with some justification, claim the moral high ground. In your world, abortion is murder, its practitioners, murderers. The issue is black and white. Forget incest and rape. Every fetus is a person. You would like to see all clinics closed and, short of the shooting in Wichita last week, almost any action that achieves that end is justified.
For the other side, those who support the right to choose, the issue is less about morals than civil rights. The state has no right to decide what a woman can do with her own body. Within the vague but universally accepted boundaries of trimesters, women should be allowed to chose whether to carry their fetus to term. Using words like "viable" and even "baby" put the focus on the pregnancy rather than on the pregnant. Pro choice advocates would rather frame the argument as one involving emancipation. Women should be allowed to make any medical decision that directly affects them. That right of self-governance should not be infringed upon by any state law involving counseling, notification of parents or waiting periods.
As with most weighty issues in this country, the majority of us have opinions that fall somewhere in the middle. No one likes the idea of abortion. Euphemisms not withstanding, most Americans would be just as happy if the entire practice became unnecessary. If every pregnancy was a blessing and every child a gift the world would be a better place. Sadly, this is not the universe in which we live. The reason that many abortion opponents are silent is because many people are uncomfortable making decisions for others. Abortion isn't legal because it's popular. It's legal because many of us would rather leave the choices to the people involved.
Nevertheless, the shameful, unhelpful, irresponsible rabble-rousing taking place in the media needs to be addressed and seriously curtailed. For a huckster like Bill O'Reilly to deny any responsibility for the shooting death of Dr. George Tiller is tantamount to a bartender escaping blame for over-serving a customer who then kills with a car. Let's have no feigned shock and surprise that, having filled the airways with half-truths and invectives like Tiller the Killer, some misguided loser might think he was serving the greater good. Words have consequences. No one wants to censor Bill O'Reilly and his ilk but when your snide, smirky editorials result in a murder (and in a church, no less) decency demands that you own up to your role in the deed.
O'Reilly's portrayal of women having abortions as casual killers who would be inconvenienced by childbirth because it interfered with a hair appointment, is the worst kind of uninformed insincerity. Bill O'Reilly has less insight into the heart of a woman with an unwanted pregnancy than he has for a Zulu tribesman in Africa. His insensitivity is fueled entirely by a grab for ratings. Controversy is king. Moral outrage allows for hyperbole. His audience would view any hint of compassion as liberal backsliding. After all, we're red blooded American Christians. Who wants to listen to Oprah in white face?
Abortion is not a simple issue. It defies bumper-sticker sloganeering. The old saying was that a Republican was a Democrat with a job. Well, a Liberal is just a Conservative facing an unwanted pregnancy. Words like empathy and compassion may not play well on Fox News but they should be an integral part of the lexicon of any person who aspires to elective office. As for anyone with a microphone and an audience, go gently into that good night. Free speech is guaranteed in America but so is the pursuit of happiness. Go easy on people whose problems you were not invited to solve.
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