I worked in an anti-abortion clinic today. It was interesting. It's located next door to an actual abortion clinic and the staff stands in front of the other clinic to provide free "counseling" to the women going inside. I am relatively sure there is no violence involved since I don't hear anything in the local news about angry abortion protesters beating doctors in Dallas as they scurry to their cars after working at the clinic. Granted, I don't watch the news.
The interesting thing about the whole abortion debate is, that while I am ideologically on the pro-life side, I find that I'd rather associate with the pro-choice people. I mean, an abortion clinic is a terrific place to meet loose women! Seriously, pro-life people tend to be white, and less "cosmopolitan". (Ok, I think they're white trash...)
The Catholic Church and Evangelical Christians are the driving force behind the pro-life movement and I don't much agree with either group. I don't like the Catholic Church, because, well it's the Catholic Church. Organizations that slaughter dissenters, torture and extort its members, and incite countries to violence against other countries are called terrorist organizations now. The Catholic Church says it has reformed now, but it is still home to rampant corruption. Catholicism seems to me to be an empty religion. I have nothing but respect for devout people who practice the religion and are faithful to what they believe, I just truly believe they are mistaken - like I think Democrats are mistaken. Evangelical Christians, as represented by the groups who are a part of the national pro-life movement, are nearly as bad as far as I am concerned. Most religions are so far in practice from what they originally claimed to believe that I find their claim to righteousness laughable. (Not that I am much better :-p)
The other side of the coin, the pro-choice organizations - Planned Parenthood, NOW, Democrats, etc. - are just as mistaken. My stance against abortion is this: Most reasonable people will agree that aborting a viable 7 month old baby in the womb is wrong. (NOW doesn't, taking the stance that if they lose on that issue the next attack will be on first and second term abortions. This is unreasonable. It's murder, pure and simple.) The reason that reasonable people agree that aborting a baby in the 7th month is wrong is that he can live outside the womb. If his mother gave birth to him, chances are good that he would survive. You can use this argument against abortion in the thrid trimester, but supposedly not for any earlier term babies because these babies are still dependent on their mothers; but what if a baby could be independent of his mother after 3 months, or 2, or maybe even immediately after conception? The reason that babies can't survive earlier births now is medical technology. As soon as we have the ability to support them sooner will abortion suddenly be wrong then? I think if abortion is not wrong it should be fine at any time during the pregnancy - right up to the final delivery of the baby. The mother should be able to decide "No I don't want the baby, dump it now!" If you believe a woman has right to do that, than someone should confiscate your sexual organs. We don't need people like you to reproduce.