Nuance

In response to Briana Roger's post on abolishing abortion, I should really only have to say "Instances of rape, incest, and health risks to the mother".

To be more specific, if we put aside the ideas of a woman's right to her own body, the separation of church and state, the economic impact of unplanned births on women or families etc, there is still this: Abortions are a medical procedure that sometimes have absolute, objective medical benefits.

It is not the legislature's job to make medical decisions. I do not contact my state rep when I need my wisdom teeth extracted, nor would I call and ask them if I should use an air splint or an immobilizing cast on the spiral fracture of a humerus.

I'm not responding to the ideas of protecting what may or may not be a living thing, nor the idea of a back up form of birth control. I'm responding to what could be presumed to be the "arrogance" of a blanket, absolute ban on abortion.

As Briana cites "According to this article most abortions are performed on women who either don't use contraceptives or don't use them consistently."

Most. Even if inconsistent use of birth control were a disqualifying factor in abortion procedures, this is not a factor in all of the cases.



What other procedures could be banned to save lives? People die during liposuction at what may be called a surprising rate. I mean, it's just a cosmetic procedure, why don't these people just exercise more, don't they know they could DIE? But, I'm not a doctor. I can't say whether or not there are going to be medical benefits to this procedure.

Why don't we ban the private possession of all radioactive isotopes? Those things give off cancer, can be used to build weapons, present complicated disposal problems, they're just awful. Well, goodbye x-ray machines, it's not like those have any medical benefits.


Zero tolerance means zero flexibility, a complete inability to adapt to a situation which can generally be described of as a just a bit complicated. There is nuance here, there are shades of gray.