A Right to Life

Today is the annual pro-life march in DC. A few interesting pieces I saw in connection with this:

• Sarah Palin and Bristol appear on a magazine cover talking about how happy they were that they "chose" life.
• Tim Tebow and his mother are appearing in a commercial during the Superbowl for Focus on the Family on the pro-life cause.
• And I don't know if the scheduling on this was coincidental, but Private Practice featured an episode last night on the pregnant 15 year old daughter of two of the doctors. I don't usually watch the show, but I was curious at how they were going to treat the discussion of abortion. The mother wanted her daughter to abort, despite the fact that she had always been against abortion. However, the daughter could not go through it. A sequence at the end had the mother trying to show her daughter how horrible childbirth was, but all the daughter could consider was how wonderful it was to have the baby born alive. I thought the show was compelling, and it was very life affirming. It was a mistake for the 15 year old to become sexually active, but making that "choice" to have the baby would not be a mistake.

Yes, these mothers are all "choosing" life, but none of them really considered it a choice. I don't agree with Addison, that the baby isn't a baby until after 24 weeks or whatever arbitrary date she decided. It's true: an abortion stops a beating heart. I don't know how anyone can view that not be anything but murder. Unless the baby was going to die, and kill the mother, I don't see how there can be an exception.