As an atheist, most people might automatically place me in a left-wing liberal box and assume I am 100% pro-choice.  In some ways, they may be right. In the public realm, I believe the right to an abortion must remain intact. In my private life, however, I am staunchly pro-life, and could not imagine suggesting to my wife that we abort a pregnancy. Almost two years ago, as my wife and I were both halfway through earning our Bachelor's degrees, we found out that we had become pregnant. It was unplanned, and could not have happened at a more inconvenient time, but abortion was not even a consideration. Instead, we owned the fact that we chose to have unprotected sex in the first place, and found sincere excitement in the prospect of having a child together, no matter how tough the circumstances were. From that time on, we scheduled obgyn visits around classes and talked to professors about the making up coursework if the birth happened during the quarter. In the end, by wife took a final exam AFTER her water broke (she didn't know it at the time), and we had a beautiful baby girl. A year later, we also had our respective degrees. These days, my beautiful two-year old daughter climbs on the furniture, eats with a spoon, knows all her animals noises along with the word "no", and makes me so incredibly happy that I never regret the difficult times when my wife and I passed her like a baton between classes and I had to write term papers while nodding off from sleep deprivation.

So why do I believe abortion should remain legal? Once again, I am personally pro-life, and I wish that everyone else were pro-life as well. I also wish that teenagers waited to have sex until they are ready to accept the responsibility of parenthood, I wish that women were not raped, or molested, or left hanging by unscrupulous men when an accidental pregnancy occurs. I wish that some women weren't disfunctional drug addicts, prostitutes, or uneducated about their options. I also wish that some women wouldn't use abortion as a form of birth control. I wish all of these things and more BECAUSE I am personally pro-life. I hate the practice of abortion. It's one of those shameful corners of human existence, like alchoholism, drug addiction, prostitution, corruption or infidelity.

However, like those issues, abortion is NOT going away, no matter how hard we try to make it illegal. Wishing it were different does NOTHING to address reality.

Back in 73, when Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion in this country, it was not done to spite Christians, but rather, to bring the shady and dangerous practice of abortion from the back-alleys, bedrooms, crooked doctors, and untrained practitioners into the full control of the United States government. The reality is that, before legalization, girls who wanted abortions were put into the incapable hands of some very shady people. Some girls received successful abortions, while others were abused, rendered infertile, or killed. Many of these girls were the daughters of good Christian families who were too ashamed to tell their parents about their pregnancies. They were women like your daughters, or my daughter. They were young, scared, impressionable, and often made bad choices... but many paid a price that we can't imagine these days. Why? The abortion industry in their time was unregulated, and any jackass who wanted to make a few extra bucks could weild a coathanger, turkey baster, or scalpel and cause all kinds of damage.

Before abortion became illegal, innocent babies STILL DIED. The difference these days is that the mothers don't die along with them.  I for one feel that a young woman- no matter how bad her choices have been- is more valuable that a fetus. Her parents have invested their lives in raising her. Society has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in educating and caring for her. It is THEIR lives that we must strive to protect.

That said, I do feel we need to do everything possible to avoid unwanted pregnancy in the first place. While abortion isn't going away, legal or illegal, we can at least eliminate the need for it through better education, abstinence, and common-sense adoption programs.

-C.A.