Venita Coelho wrote: > If we now recognize that a woman is not the property of a man, then the > choice of whether to carry a child in her body or not is also hers. If > we recognise that the state has no business interfering in the private > matter of personal reproduction, then the choice is a woman's alone. And > it is high time we recognized that religion has no business imposing its > choices on the body of a woman.
> Conceiving a child and holding it in your body is a deeply intimate > meaningful thing that only a woman can understand. And only a woman > knows what a deep sense of sadness and loss she will then carry when she > has made her choice. But the choice is hers and hers alone. The decision > of whether to bear a child or not is best left to the conscience of the > mother. Mario observes: This dilemma has nothing to do with the property rights of a man, though he certainly has a moral right to a fetus he has helped create. While the legal systems in all the secular countries generally accept the heinous and cold-blooded sophistry of the reproductive rights of a woman, the same legal systems would deny various other "rights" that the same woman may "choose" to exercise with the same body we are talking about here. For example, ingesting hallucinogenic drugs or selling her body for sex. Venita's stirring and one-sided assertion of the rights of a woman ignores the rights of the living human fetus which will be trampled on without permission. While a woman has every right to decide whether she wants to become pregnant or not, it should get a lot more complicated for thinking human beings who are not slaves to self-serving sophistry and ideology once the woman does become pregnant, whether unintentionally or not. It has been established by society based on certain self-serving criteria that there is a period of time before an embryo formed at conception is considered a "human person" for secular legal purposes. Thus an abortion before that thresh-hold is not considered murder for legal purposes. However, there is no question that the embryo is a "human life" from the moment of conception and not a tissue mass that can be discarded in the thrash without compunction. Unlike just a few years ago, DNA science today can distinguish with 100% certainty between a human embryo, the embryo of some other species, and a non-living thing. Unlike a tissue mass which remains a tissue mass, under normal circumstances the human embryo quickly becomes a human being and eventually a human person no matter how that is defined. Unless there is a serious medical question as to whether the mother's health would be in jeopardy, when the mother and father must make a painful decision as to whether to risk her far more developed life or not, the option of adoption should be considered FIRST as a win-win solution in the case of an unwanted pregnancy. Mother Theresa's Missionaries of Charity, among other organizations, are ready to help in such situations.
