Abortion

Abortion : A word that seems to irritate and cause some people to foam at the mouth as they predict nasty painful experiences for those who 'commit such heinous crimes against humanity'.
No one likes abortion. No sane person decides to use abortion as a form of contraceptive - at least not in an environment where contraceptives are cheap and readily available. Pro-lifers tend to use graphic images of foetuses in the womb, sucking thumbs, to attempt to cause maximum distress to women who have had or are considering having an abortion. If you conducted a poll on those same Pro Lifers my guess is that a high proportion hardly bat an eyelid at the numbers of people killed in Iraq each day as a result, directly and indirectly, of the Big Nations occupation/invasion of that country. Those same people would not give two figs about the number of children dying around the world as a result, again directly and indirectly, of unfair trade policies, debt demands, impossibly high loan interest rates, financial aid provided with strings attached and many other examples. Those same people may object to 'foreigners flooding into our country', who will view them as slightly above vermin and treated as such.
I'm not saying that aborting a foetus in the 8th month of pregnancy is a good thing - obviously there has to be a cut-off point when abortions should not occur. So, how do we reduce the number of late abortions? We empower women to understand their bodies, to enable them to access support and information as early as possible, to have good quality health care available to all women, to engage with the partners of women within the services provided, to teach boys and girls about parental responsibilities from an early age, to remove religious and other forms of dogma from the arena of sex education and reproduction - to name a few.
It's not reasonable to care about unborn 'children' and yet ignore the thousands of preventable deaths each day of men, women and children globally.
I don't want to live today for a 'promised' unknown life, i.e. 'when I go to heaven'. I don't want to promote fiction and fear. I want people to choose how to live their lives for themselves.