I think I am one of a rare breed - I'm a moderate on abortion. I was brought up as a catholic and many of my family members are members of SPUC or Life. I don't think we will ever find the point at which conciousness begins, because scientists don't yet know what constitutes consciousness or even prove it exists! We don't know if it is an all or nothing phenomenon, or whether there are gradations of consciousness/awareness.

I think that we can look at abortion in a different way. When it comes down to it, I think everyone would agree that abortion is a bad thing. Nobody actually wants to be in the position where they have to choose whether or not to have an abortion. So the answer really is to try to prevent this situation occurring as much as possible. Unfortunately, the ways each side would choose to prevent the situation from arising, are incompatible with the beliefs of the "other side". With the pro-lifers, the life of the child is paramount, so they believe that the best thing is to make it illegal and usually side step the fact that making it illegal won't stop everyone, and causes the terrible situations of the back street abortions. Their stance is unacceptable to the pro choice groups because their emphasis is on the choice of the woman to decide what happens in her own body. If these groups were to focus their efforts on a way to reduce the "abortion situation" they would do it by education, contraception etc. This is unacceptable to most pro-lifers because they tend to be catholic organisations who can't be seen to condone contraception (no matter that individually, the vast majority of them use contraception!). So the two sides continue to fight tooth an nail and demonise eachother. One calls the other "baby murderers"; they return with the charge of being misogynistic, and having prehistoric attitutes to feminism and equality.

My view is that it will never be resolved until people of both sides get together (in a similar way to the Gush Shalom group mentioned in the happy birthday Israel thread) and work out a way that is at least acceptable to both groups. This would probably mean a separation from the catholic church, or at least for the contraception line to be accepted. In my view, it shouldn't be made illegal, better education and contraception needs to be freely available, laws need to be passed to make it easier for women to take breaks from work without comprimising their career and poverty certainly needs to be addressed. Better care and rights for the disabled should be campaigned for and much earlier and easier screening for very severe disabilities need to be researched, as surely if an abortion is going to occur, it is better for all if it is as early as possible.

So that's the view of one moderate on abortion - are there any others who agree with me?

Bagpuss