This is the most honest pro-choice advocate I've ever heard. In the past, it seemed that they always tried to canvass the truth with euphamisms: pregnancy mass, fetus, D&C - and their cliches: so every child will be loved and wanted, to save the life of the mother, to protect the emotional well-being... and on and on. But not this lady. Mary Elizabeth Williams comes out and tells it like it is. "I believe that life starts at conception. And it's never stopped me from being pro-choice." I was shocked when I read that. I have had so many debates with pro-choicers about when life begins, so it was kind of refreshing to hear someone from that camp admit what we've known all along. That being said, her stance is even more shocking. It is hard and cold and somehow unbelievable to me. Her argument is "All life is not equal." She goes on to say:
A fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.
Wow. Ok. I can kind of understand when they try to use the whole saving-the-mother's life dilemma. That would be a hard choice to make and I could see how people would fall on either side of that one. But when we talk of "reproductive rights," we are talking of elective abortions, not emergency operations or terminations. Williams says herself, "If by some random fluke I learned today I was pregnant, you bet your ass I’d have an abortion. I’d have the World’s Greatest Abortion." So, what she is saying is a woman's desire to stay skinny so she can look good in her bikini (or any reason, really) trumps a child's right to live?! I am beyond shocked. I am horrified!
Without the starting point that man is made in the image of God, made to have dominion over the animals, and given an immortal soul - once you get rid of all that, man is just another animal. Life is cheap, and Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest rules the day. It's odd that we do not take this to it's logical conclusion though. There have been a number of incidences where mothers could not deal with being mothers and so they killed their kids (Susan Smith is one who comes to mind, and more recently, Caylee Anthony's mother, even if she was acquitted). Why should these women be put on trial if their lives are worth more and their children's live were worth sacrificing? Is it because their kids lives were autonomous by that point? I mean, kids are pretty dependant for a long time after birth. At what age does their worth become equal to that of their mothers? Are babies of equal value once they are no long inside womb? Are they merely parasites until they break free of the host? And what other lives are not equal? Society often refers to certain types of criminals as "low-lives." Are those lives worth less? Maybe we can unilaterally decide to kill them too. Williams tries to argue her case from a non-emotional, logical standpoint, but she fails all tests of logic and resorts to "feelings" in the end anyway when she discusses how women feel relieved about an abortion, but feel grieved about a miscarriage. The moment emotions are employed to prove logic, the argument is lost.
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