Abortion Secrets

One of the not-so-minor points in the recent presidential election was the abortion question. Obama stated that he believed in a woman's right to abortion. McCain and Palin announced that they personally didn't believe in abortion, but if elected they would not make a federal case out of it; they would leave the legality of abortion to the individual states. Still, the word went out: "If McCain gets elected, you can kiss Roe vs. Wade goodbye". This helped tip the balance toward Obama. It's rather clear that, no matter what the Right to Life crowd may claim, a vast number of Americans -- particularly women -- want to keep abortion legal. Those who don't should consider the following facts, which were never mentioned in any of the campaign rhetoric.
First, abortion can take place only during the first trimester of pregnancy. After that it becomes dangerous to the mother, and no doctor will do it for anything less than a direct threat to the mother's life. During the first trimester of pregnancy the object in a woman's uterus is definitely not a "baby"; it won't become that until the last trimester. It isn't even properly called a "fetus"; it won't become that until the second trimester. The proper scientific name for it is "embryo" -- as in "embryonic" -- and it is absolutely not a human being. It does not have a human heart, or a human spine, or human lungs, and it certainly does not have a human brain. For the religious-minded, consider that without a brain there is no mind -- and without a mind, how can there be a soul?
Yes, an embryo is made of human tissue -- but then, so are toenails. Yes, it's technically alive -- but then, so is a virus. Yes, it will eventually develop to become a human being -- but then, given enough time, so will whole species of monkeys; the only difference is time -- six months versus six million years. The physical condition of an embryo is somewhere between that of a primitive worm and a salamander. Its life is certainly not worth the life, or health, or freedom, of a real human being -- such as a woman -- not unless you're going to claim that women are not really human beings.
Second, on the question of "the value of life", ask yourself: whose life?
No man has ever died in childbirth, but countless hundreds of millions of women have. Childbirth is not safe. It has not been safe since humans began walking upright, and growing big brains and big skulls to contain them. Even in America today, according to the medical actuarial tables, for women between the ages of 15 and 50, childbirth is the second most common way for a woman to die. (The first one is violence, usually perpetrated by men.) Any woman who becomes pregnant is placing her life at risk.
No one should be forced to place their life at risk without their consent. No one should be forced to risk their life for someone else's beliefs. No man has the right to order a woman to risk her life for what he wants.
In any country that calls itself free, to risk your life or not must always be the individual's choice. Therefore, to abort or not must always be the individual woman's choice -- and nobody else's. Anything less is tyranny.