So, yelling “murder” makes you feel better?
As a man I will never have the incredible life experience of pregnancy. As a father I have, however, witnessed the joy, fear and pain of those long nine months. As we wander farther into the political landscape, I ask you to pause and ask yourself if your rhetoric is making it easier to bear a child or worse. Do your favorite politicians actually promote life and limited government, or do they simply grand stand?
One of the more inflammatory statements by politicians is the sentence “Abortion is murder.” It is simple. It is easy to understand. It distorts reality just like “War is murder.” Should we outlaw war? Becoming pregnant shouldn’t mean that a woman gives up her right to self-defense.
We know, as a matter of fact, that pregnancy is a very dangerous time in a woman’s life. Before modern medicine, pregnancy was the number one cause of death for women in America. Who is in a better place to make medical decisions? A woman in the privacy of her doctor’s office? Or a politician in Austin or Washington?
The Supreme Court of the United States, in Roe v. Wade, limited the government and voters. SCOTUS said that both Federal and State governments must let a woman make all medical decisions in the first trimester. In the second trimester the governments can then get involved to protect the health and safety of the mother. In the third trimester, when most people agree there is a second life involved, the government can regulate abortions as long as politicians let a woman decide matters that impact her life and health. This court decision recognized the dignity, privacy and individual liberty of every woman.
Now, if you still insist on calling abortion murder, then please put yourself in this real life story for a moment.
A 
young, married mother had an abortion. She already had a couple of kids when her doctor told her that she had a tubal pregnancy. She would die without an abortion. Her Catholic priest told her that she had to carry the pregnancy to term and face God’s will. God would decide if she lived or died. To terminate the pregnancy was murder. She had no right to self-defense.
The mother decided to terminate the pregnancy so that her other young children would have a mother. She lived for them, put her soul at risk for them, and then she had one more child after that life changing experience. She agonized for the rest of her life because the Catholic Church, her church, continued to call her a murderer. The politicians in her home state called her a murder. Many of her family and friends, not knowing her story, called her a murderer. What was she? She was a mother. A life giver.
No woman makes these decisions easily. Do you really think this is your choice? It is not your choice. You don’t have to raise her kids or live her life. You can’t. Life is not an Internet meme.
What can we do to promote life while respecting the privacy and dignity of women?
First, no expectant mother should feel alone and compelled to terminate a pregnancy. Every pregnant woman should have access to health care before and after her child is born. Women also need to know that our government is working to improve job opportunities and wages — more than 20% of women in the United States who have an abortion do so because they can’t afford a baby. To give women an alternative to abortion, we should work to remove the restrictions to adoption and to improve the foster care system. Finally, Congress must make sure low and middle income mothers have access to child care. They can then benefit from the dignity of working and taking care of their families. When women feel part of a community, they will be less likely to turn to abortion as a form of birth control.
Now, I’m sure someone will scream “Big Government” when I talk about these proven ways to reduce the number of abortions. What is the alternative? Do we reward government officials for screaming murder, denying proper health care and arresting doctors? Who’s for big government again? I trust women to talk to their doctor and their God about issues involving health and life. The alternative is a radically intrusive government.
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