Just some thoughts

I don't talk about politics much on this blog, but something has been bothering me lately. I've never been able to come down on one side or the other on the abortion issue; I mostly just stay away from it. But in all the articles that I've seen about the recent decision by the Supreme Court, it has frequently been mentioned that there is no medically necessary reason for a partial-birth abortion. I would like to say that I don't think that is true. A partial-birth abortion, or Dilation & Extraction, is what I had last summer. Granted, it's a very different case when the baby has already died, but the Supreme Court has not made that distinction or any other. I could have had labor induced, but my doctor told us that it would have taken a few days and would have probably been very painful. I don't know if we made the right choice when we decided to opt for the surgery - we were in shock and we didn't have the luxury of thinking through our decision very carefully. I am very ambivalent about whether we were correct. All I know is that when I spent the worst day of my life at an abortion clinic (rather than at a hospital, where that procedure is not performed), the people there were sympathetic and caring and sensitive to what we were going through, and they performed a service that the hospital was unwilling to provide.

I can't come down firmly on one side or the other in this debate. All I know is that it if it were such an easy moral issue, then it would have been settled a long time ago. As in most political issues, I just wish people would remember the gray areas.