Mythology and Abortion

Mythology, Abortion, and the cold hard facts.

What the heck is going on in our society? The topic of abortion is made complicated by emotionally charged discussions that are clouded with confusing and conflicting information which is misrepresented at times by the opposing sides of the debate to augment their argument or opinion. Frequently, in open forums and societal debates considerable mythology (noun: myths collectively; the body of stories associated with a culture or institution or person) appears to surround this topic. For clarification in academic fields, a myth is a sacred story concerning the origins of the world or how the world and the creatures in it came to have their present form. In saying that a myth is a sacred narrative, what is meant is that a myth is believed to be true by people who attach religious or spiritual significance to it. Use of the term by scholars does not imply that the narrative is either true or false. I recently read an article that discussed the topic of abortion on demand. I was challenged to reexamine my convictions.
The mother of all abortion debates is Roe vs Wade. In this Supreme Court decision the majority of the justices obviously sided with Roe which resulted in the legalization of abortion on demand. Yep, from conception to seconds before your first breath abortion is allowed. Many people believe erroneously that abortion is only legal in the first three month of first trimester of pregnancy. This myth was faithfully propagated in public debate by newspapers, magazines, pollsters, and others by framing the argument with the pretense “In the first trimester of pregnancy…” implying that abortion was somehow legislatively restricted in the second and third trimesters. In Roe vs Wade a window was left open to allow individual states to legislate restrictions during the second and third trimesters. However, in Doe vs Bolton the window was lost when the whole wall was knocked down. Medical determination of the health of the patient eviscerated any legal recourse.
The most startling aspect of the whole process is that the “legal precedence” was more “legal activism” then constitutional law. The concept of a “penumbra” (the gray area between light and complete shadow) of legal rights within the Bill of Rights has been recognized and used in determination of constitutional rights in many cases. The justices in defense of their positions either concurring or dissenting unquestionably recognize marriage and its particularities and uniqueness in conjugal intimacy as an entity warranting penumbral privacy protection. Dissention arose with the decision to uphold contraception rights of individuals, the court made the sweeping conclusion that abortion was a form of contraception and that abortion was a constitutional liberty. To this day Roe vs Wade is not argued or defended by its own merits but rather secondary constitutional avenues which address governmental encroachment on individual rights.
So what is the debate? Where will the cult of unrestricted “individual rights” lead its followers to worship? Will the communal cult of “responsibility of actions” who recognize no man as an island and that individual actions have a ripple effect on all humanity concede to the shady mythological god of penumbral rights who no one has seen, heard, or read? Should impregnated men (this is the future) or women be allowed to continue to terminate their progeny on demand or should some restriction on this form of birth control be implemented? Are human persons uniquely endowed with unalienable rights such as life liberty and the pursuit of happiness at any cost? Will the minority cult of “well what about in the case of ….” Continue to lead the majority of “well, yeah but something ain’t right.” As long as faithful propagators in the camps of “the individual willed that he crawl from primordial ooze therefore the individual is solely determinant of his destiny” and “the individual was created to exist in harmony in community with other persons as a prelude to his eternal destiny with the Master Planner” exist it is unlikely that the debate will subside.