by EJ Englin

Created on: December 11, 2008

The debate over whether or not women should be allowed to have an abortion is getting old.

First, the scientific evidence for pregnancy is clear: 90 percent of all pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion, (just ask women who are trying to get pregnant through invitro fertilization), which means that 9 times out of 10 a woman will not have a successful pregnancy. Whether it is before the the egg sack attaches to the uterine wall or after, nature does a very efficient job at abortion, why shouldn't a woman have that same control.

A woman's body is her own. People like to try and make this a religious debate by sighting that abortion is considered murder according to whatever holy book they happen to be reading, but that is not so clear. In the Holy Bible, for instance, if a husband assumes that his wife (without proof) has lain with another man then:

- Numbers 5:19-32 - And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse: But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband: Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen.

Which means that a priest can perform a pseudo-scientific, quasi-spiritual abortion. The bit about the bitter water is hard to understand at first, but if we look closely we see that " when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell" he is obviously talking about the woman losing her baby. Even the punishment of making a woman lose her child in the womb is not harsh, because it is not considered murder, by biblical standards. The debate of when the soul enters the fetus is also a strange one since, their can be one egg sack and two children and there is no scientifically rigorous method of testing such claims. They are unfounded and based on hypothesis, conjecture and opinion.

We cannot and indeed dare not take away a woman's right to choose. There are children starving the world over, people dying from starvation number in the billions. Is it right to say that you must have that child, but once it is born our hands are clean?

While I agree that abortion should not be used as a primary contraceptive, there is no reason why it can't be used as a last resort. Why bring a child into this world if you know it is going to suffer? Is not the life of the mother just as, or even more important, seeing as she is already a breathing human being? Isn't the life of the child once it is born of paramount importance?

Taking away a woman's right to choose, is testament to saying that a woman shouldn't have control over her own body, shouldn't be allowed to make a decision about her health and welfare. It effectively puts women (medically and politically) back in the dark ages.

Learn more about this author, EJ Englin.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.