Editor:

The problem with the people that argue pro-life and pro-choice stances is that they are too often caught up in their own little "black and white" notions, while the fact of the matter is that abortion is an issue colored in shades of gray. What it comes down to is that "the big picture" of abortion, the aspect of whether it should be legal or not, is not a moral stance, but a practical one.

It would be wrong for government to outlaw abortion for many reasons. The first is for the welfare of the fetus. Yes, oh jeez, I said it, the welfare of the unborn child. At the current time, government does not punish women who do drugs, drink, or smoke while they are pregnant, all of which can cause physical deformities, mental problems, and in some cases, cause a miscarriage or a stillbirth. These and the wonderful solution since time immemorial, back-alley abortion, would be the only choice left for women who 1) did not want to bear a child that would be mentally or physically challenged because the mother knew she couldn't stop doing drugs, alcohol, whatever, and would look to abortion to ease her and her unborn's pain; 2) did not want to bear a child of rape or incest, rape having the consequences of emotional damage to both parties and the possibility of an AIDS-born child, incest having the consequences of emotional trauma to both parties as well, and the possibility of serious genetic defect; 3) did not want to bring the child up in an abusive environment, where it could be killed or beaten, or other such atrocities. The list goes on and on, but these are just a few examples of why women turn to abortion (and all the cases are quite real, I assure you).

The second reason why government has no right to enforce anti-abortion laws is because it practices capital punishment. If life does begin at conception, which I affirm it does, it most certainly does not end when one commits a violent crime. Government cannot have the double-standard of saying one life is worth saving more than another. It certainly is not government's right to decide, and in fact, it is not government's right to kill, but let's not get into that. Government cannot and should not kill the Roe v. Wade decision, simply because government has no place to dictate morality (when it practices amoral acts such as legalized murder) and because, most of the time, eliminating the choice is worse than having it there. At least having that choice there makes us think about whether abortion is moral or not, for ourselves, without the holier-than-thou government telling us what to think about it. At least then, we can decide whether it is moral to have an abortion, individually, without having to be told to feel bad about it or good about it.

Abortion is not black and white, and it certainly doesn't have just one level of thought. It is an issue that is riddled with gray and composed of many planes of thought. However, it is the individual plane that should be moral, and the legislative plane which should be practical, for the unborn child's and for the mother's sake.

Melissa Meister
molecular and cellular Biology sophomore