What have we learned?

DAVID WHITESOCK — From all the “debate” on the abortion issue over the last week or so, what have we been able to parse out and learn? Anything? I don’t know about you, but I haven’t really learned much. It’s a topic which comes tandem with lighting bolts, and all that seems to happen is that everyone goes back to their corners, saliva dripping from there mouths still wild with fury.

A few things I do know. Angie Buhl and I disagree, but her form of argument is to insult and not necessarily debate. Kelsey Collier-Wise, who is extremely intelligent and whom I greatly respect, took me to task, and obviously we do not agree either, but at the end of that sparring I feel like we’ve essentially agreed to disagree. And, there are more than two sides to this issue. However, most don’t see it that way.

I re-read through many of the comments on Brian’s column and the comments on the blog here, and at the end I was simply tired. It is a very demanding issue. But, before I went to bed last night, I pulled up some late night reading, the Supreme Court opinion in Roe V. Wade. One passage in particular from Justice White’s, albeit short dissent, sums up my opinion on the matter, and I will leave it at that, but I do suggest everyone read the full opinion of the Court, so that we are all on the same page regarding where the courts really are with abortion.

The Court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries. Whether or not I might agree with that marshaling of values, I can in no event join the Court’s judgment because I find no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the States. In a sensitive area such as this, involving as it does issues over which reasonable men may easily and heatedly differ, I cannot accept the Court’s exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to exterminate it. This issue, for the most part, should be left with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs.