#15 Abortion

My children are the most wonderful blessings in my life. My children were a gift to me from their brave and loving birth mothers who were both 17 when they became mothers. I am thankful every day for Claire and JW and for Kim and Niki.

So how can I support a woman's right to abortion? I simply do not believe that, fully human life begins at the moment of conception or that full human rights should be conferred to an embryo. I have been pregnant. I loved my babies from the moment I learned they were growing inside of me. I deeply grieved when I lost them but my important and authentic emotion is not the same as as medical reality or ethical behavior.

It is not ethically, medically or legally appropriate to grant full human rights to a non-viable embryo or fetus. Doing so means that the following policies would be necessary:

1. All woman who were pregnant due to rape would be forced to give birth.

2. All woman who face life threatening consequences if they carry a pregnancy to delivery will be forced to give birth.

3. Children as young as 11 or 12 who become pregnant due to ignorance and dangerous behavior will be forced to give birth.

4. In vitro fertilization, which often results in creating embryos that are never implanted, would be called into question. This is not often mentioned by the "pro-life" crowd because ivf is a very popular fertility treatment that has given hope and children to many families. But if life begins at conception how can we freeze and forget a bunch of "humans"? How can we approve of the accepted practice of "selective reduction" which aborts the unwanted 3rd, 4th and/or 5th baby when implantation has been very successful?

5. We will never be able to use embryonic stem cells for important medical research on critical problems like Parkinson's disease, MS, spinal cord injury and neural disorders.


Abortion is a sad and difficult issue. For the reasons listed above it is not a black or white issue. I agree with Obama's position on abortion. His standard answer is that he believes that Roe v Wade was rightly decided and that abortion it would not be a litmus test for judicial appointments. He believes that abortion is a difficult and moral decision which should be made by a woman, her family and physicians and that we should work to make abortions unnecessary.

In the third debate he went on to say:

"If it sounds incredible that I would vote to withhold lifesaving treatment from an infant, that's because it's not true. The -- here are the facts.

There was a bill that was put forward before the Illinois Senate that said you have to provide lifesaving treatment and that would have helped to undermine Roe v. Wade. The fact is that there was already a law on the books in Illinois that required providing lifesaving treatment, which is why not only myself but pro-choice Republicans and Democrats voted against it.

And the Illinois Medical Society, the organization of doctors in Illinois, voted against it. Their Hippocratic Oath would have required them to provide care, and there was already a law in the books.

With respect to partial-birth abortion, I am completely supportive of a ban on late-term abortions, partial-birth or otherwise, as long as there's an exception for the mother's health and life, and this did not contain that exception.

And I attempted, as many have in the past, of including that so that it is constitutional. And that was rejected, and that's why I voted present, because I'm willing to support a ban on late-term abortions as long as we have that exception.

The last point I want to make on the issue of abortion. This is an issue that -- look, it divides us. And in some ways, it may be difficult to -- to reconcile the two views.

But there surely is some common ground when both those who believe in choice and those who are opposed to abortion can come together and say, "We should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth, communicating that sexuality is sacred and that they should not be engaged in cavalier activity, and providing options for adoption, and helping single mothers if they want to choose to keep the baby."

Those are all things that we put in the Democratic platform for the first time this year, and I think that's where we can find some common ground, because nobody's pro-abortion. I think it's always a tragic situation."

YUP- that's thinking I support.