Pro-Life.

Pro-Choice.

Encamp.

Yell.

Demand.

There is an answer to the whole abortion issue. The answer is: They're both right.

Abortion means killing a human.

A woman's body belongs to herself.

Any possibility of a workable resolution must begin by accepting these two basic truths. As long as one side is yelling "tastes great" and the other is yelling "less filling," yelling is all we will ever have.

When a cell is fertilized and implanted into the womb of a woman, a process has begun which, if left undisturbed, will lead to pregnancy, birth, the terrible twos, a teenager, an adult, and eventually death of natural causes. Anything, from a bullet, to a virus, to an abortion clinic, which interrupts that process has put an early end to the process of human life.

"But when does life really begin," you say.

I just told you.

A fetus is incapable of living independently and it requires a host body from which to feed until it is born. It is a parasite. If we force a woman to endure an unwanted pregnancy, we're as much as putting leeches on her body. A woman should choose whether or not a foreign body feeds off of hers.

"But can we really compare a human, unborn baby to a parasite," you say.

I just told you.

Everyone wants to argue about which of these two perspectives is more true. That's where we are now and we just go round and round. Both sides have convinced themselves that they are more right and therefore there can be no compromise. After all, abortion is killing. After all, it's her body. Tastes great. Less filling. Stop, you're both right.

The compromise must come not from abandoning our beliefs, but by building on what we can agree upon and allowing some give and take where we can not. We must first try to understand each other's position and why everyone feels so strongly about the correctness of their side.

The pro-lifers need to say, "I understand that it's a parasite in your body," even as they know that the fetus was created by a conscious decision that could have been controlled.

The pro-choicers need to say, "I understand that it is killing," even as they know that a fetus is fundamentally different than a living, breathing human.

We should all be able to agree that the best type of unwanted pregnancy is the one that never happens. There are many ways to achieve this.

Don't touch each other. If you do touch, don't have sex. If you have sex, use birth control. If a couple passes these steps and they create a life, they have more options. She can give birth and keep it. She can give birth and give it away. She can kill it.

We must search for common ground as far as possible up to the last, fatal step. Pro-choicers must be willing to recognize the sanctity of human life and agree that avoiding abortions is worth some extra effort. Pro-lifers must be willing to recognize that, if all else fails, no one should be able to commandeer a woman's body to be used against her will.

When we discuss abortion we must reach into the related issues of our sexuality and the sexuality of children and young adults. Thus the abortion issue becomes a debate about sex education and the age of consent.

Sex is not a toy. When we reach puberty, we are capable of joining with another to create life. That is an awesome responsibility, whether or not it is acknowledged by a society. When one has such responsibility and is not taught or even expected to deal with it, of course it will be misused.

I am bewildered by the way we withhold information and responsibility from young adults and then justify those acts because they are ignorant and irresponsible.

The way to begin to regain control of this situation is to hold all men and women capable of creating a life accountable for what they do with their bodies and their gametes. We need to grant them as much information as possible, as many choices as possible, and let them carry the responsibility themselves.

In this modern world, we drive everyone into a period of limbo in which the body is an adult, but the benefits of adulthood are denied. When a young Jewish boy proclaims, "Today I am a man," his words today ring as an empty ritual to a statement that once held meaning. We force young men and women to endure the disparity between being told that they are just a child and knowing better. This is a sickness in our culture which breeds many ills.

We must abolish all sex related parental consent laws for children over the age of fourteen or the onset of puberty, whichever occurs first. This means that if a woman of any childbearing age wishes to speak to a physician, take birth control pills, get an abortion, or even get married, she can do so on her own and her right to do that must be protected.

Young men and women should be able to decide for themselves whether or not to use birth control or to speak to a school nurse or their family doctor about all their options up to and including something as drastic as voluntary sterilization.

But the options can't end there. Instead of screaming at women as they weave, sometimes frightened for their very lives, between hatred and explicit signs, Operation Rescue and other groups should be encouraged to set up offices where abortions are performed so that women can hear both sides of the story in a supportive, rather than a confrontational environment.

A young, pregnant woman might say, "I hear you. You don't want me to kill my baby. Okay. What else do I do? If I don't do this, how will you help?"

And that, very simply, is the question that the pro-lifers should be explaining with a gentle hand and a kind voice, not with bullets and firebombs.

But what do they really have to offer as an alternative? Don't you kill that baby, we say, but I don't care what you do with it after that. Adoption laws are burdensome by requiring that a child be given only the best possible life. This causes many babies to be given no life at all.

If we really want a young woman to let her baby live, we must be willing to take care of the baby after it is born. If we could say, "have the baby, and we'll take care of it for you, give it a good home, take care of him," what mother wouldn't accept that? It is wrong for a woman to consider her mere convenience more important than a human life, but it is also wrong to force the birth of the child of a sever alcoholic or drug addict without also taking responsibility for the life long trauma that the child will endure.

This most important decision can not be lifted off the shoulders of a pregnant woman by legislation that pretends to be able to supply the right answer all of the time. It must be made with full understanding of the consequences involved and only after all alternatives have been examined. But instead, we withhold and manipulate information, tell children their bodies do not belong to them, and offer too few alternatives. It's madness and it's never going to work.

We should start by agreeing that it's best not to get pregnant in the first place and offer real opportunities to allow young adults to exercise this choice. And then, once pregnant, a woman must have real options and real help.

The following policy changes would bring us to a much better situation than we now have.

• Teach sex education in fifth grade, before sex is all that interesting. Explain where babies come from, what everything is called and looks like, and how to use birth control. Explain the responsibility and choices that will be available to them when they become physically adult.
• Remove all parental consent laws relating to a child's sexual development. Allow anyone age fourteen or older to consult with a medical professional and to select the most appropriate alternative, including abortion, contraceptives, and marriage.
• Make birth control simple, available, and innocuous. Put condom machines in all junior high and high school bathrooms.
• Establish nurseries and orphanages. If we are so sure that those babies must survive, we must be there to make their survival possible.
• Ease restrictions on adoptions so all those babies in the orphanage can have a home.
• Encourage pro-abortion and anti-abortion groups to work together to offer alternatives and guidance.
• Make profiting from abortions illegal. Abortions are now a business, and profit provides a strong incentive to manipulate policy. Close the clinics and offer the procedure in hospitals.

Even if we did all of these things, there would still be many, many abortions. There would also be many unwanted babies growing up without mommies and daddies, alone in orphanages.

Eventually, however, when it sinks in that sex is not a toy to be played with behind the backs of adults, but is a natural and accepted practice among responsible adults age fourteen and older, we may begin to see a change in behavior.

As a civilized society, we must value life. Wanton abortion degrades life to little more than the few chemicals and water that we all are. Abortions have become a right of passage, a quick and dirty answer to a careless mistake, but life is more than that; it is precious, sacred. Until we acknowledge that and do everything we can to foster responsibility and a reverence for human life, give adults, both young and old, the tools and capabilities to exercise that responsibility, and offer real alternatives to abortion, we have nothing to look forward to but more hatred, more yelling, and more senseless mantras, bumper stickers, and war cries.

Tastes great.

Less filling.

:^D