Are you pro-choice or pro-life?

I view things similarly. Abortions aren't the core problem. The circumstances that cause women to feel the need for abortions are the core problem. Banning abortion is not a good in itself. If it primarily leads to women seeking dangerous illegal abortions, it would be a net evil. The pro-life movement reminds me of the temperance movement at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Seeing something evil, they seek a ban without regard of what the actual consequences. After forty years, a single-minded pursuit of banning abortion has left many so wedded to the Republican Party that they blind themselves to all other evils. Instead of resulting in a ban on abortion, this has produced an unjust war and open support for torture.

First, I should say that I'm not currently Catholic, but am considering returning to the Catholic Church.
I voted pro-life. I'm pretty connected to the issue as one, I was born before Roe v. Wade, and placed for adoption. So, I have to wonder if I was conceived a few years later, what would have happened. Second, I was a pregnant college freshman about 22 years ago and felt that the right thing to do was to have the baby and place her for adoption...so that's what I did. I still feel it was the right thing to do. Finally, I'm also a mom now, of two wonderful little guys.

I support a pro-life center here in my town, and I try to make myself available to talk to others about the adoption process from the perspective of a birth mom.

I also consider myself as pro-life in other areas...e.g., I'm anti-death penalty and pretty anti-war. I even think that my pro-life views extend to my eating, and are part of the reason I'm vegan. I try to live my life in a way that minimizes suffering.

That being said, I don't feel I'm called to act in a legislative way. I think the best way to reduce abortions is to help people get access to the resources they need to either go the adoption route or to be able to raise their children. This includes private charities and government programs like universal healthcare.

I personally have a lot of problems with the 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' dichotomy. I think overall, the abortion debate has become too polarised in emotional terms and also the rhetoric on either side is all too often based not on a rational analysis of the ethical issues but rather on a sort of World War I trench-style battlefield; either side fires everything it has at the other and always refuses to give an inch of ground to the other.

I think pro-lifers have often gone too far in their attempts to have abortion banned, to the point of even making appointments of judges a political affair. In my view, there are far more important considerations to the fitness of a political candidate for their office than their stance on legal abortion.

On the other hand, I think the liberalisation of abortion has presented a lot of problems. Abortion seems to be often done 'on demand' and fetuses seem to be aborted very frequently, often because they appear to have some defect or disability. In other cases, abortion is all too often used as the 'contraceptive of last resort.' I think it is highly questionable that the unborn should be dispensed with so recklessly, and when a new human life comes into existence, it is all too often seen as just a 'burden' or as something 'inconvienient' and to be discarded if it interferes too much with one's own life. I also think the view that a fetus is just like an organ, like an appendix, and can be regarded morally as such is also not morally acceptable.

I think the best way to proceed is to try and minimise and reduce the number of abortions. Like banning nuclear weapons, getting rid of abortion will take time and also an effort to change the entrenched cultures which convince politicians and others that abortion is something that is right in many situations.

I think this can be done in a number of ways, including offering better social and economic support to mothers tempted to abort their child for fear of poverty, recrimination or social discrimination, by trying to change the laws which permit abortion, and also changing social attitudes which often see relationships and sex as a casual and private matter and regard pregnancy as an unwanted burden. Better relationship frameworks for sexual relationships and procreation of children in those relationships need to be developed by all churches, and should be integrated into the life and liturgy of the church. I think it would help greatly if sex was celebrated more, as a great good, in the context and framework of Christian marriage, and young people were strongly inculcated in instruction in good sexual morality integrated with an intellectually and theologically sound and mature approach to their dignity and personality, with an emphasis on forming healthy and loving relationships with each other.

I think then the best way to deal with abortion is to try and restore the broken institution of marriage to society. I think by reducing the levels of divorce and by encouraging people not married to move out of that situation into wedlock, should help reduce the attraction of transient relationships and causal sex. Combined with counselling and outreach to pregnant women considering abortion, and a positive attempt to change the mindset of society and politicians generally through the democratic process, I think a lot of progress can be made to reduce the number of abortions to as low a number of possible.