The Great Divide...

We have two great divides in our country - who pays and how much on income taxes and the second is abortion. These two issues have divided our country like no other since slavery. It took a civil war with state against state, neighbor against neighbor and sometimes brother against brother to finally settle that painful issue. Let us hope that history will not repeat.

Since the issue of taxes has already been addressed in my previous article, Exactly Who, Specifically How Much, this posting is going to address the equally thorny issue of abortion. This issue has driven an impenetrable wedge throughout this nation since the historic 1973 Supreme Court ruling, Roe v Wade. It was hoped that once the Supreme Court ruled on this issue, the losing side could be somewhat accepting of the decision and we could move on. As it turned out, this ruling settled nothing and the issue is still as contentious today as it was pre-1973.

My purpose in this article is to frame the debate with facts - nothing more. Since I have friends and family on both sides of this issue, I don't want to offend. Offensive comments in the past made by both sides have done nothing but widened the divide. Even though I have my own personal feeling, I feel it is important to understand both sides with clarity.

First some facts. Since the Roe v Wade decision in 1973, nearly 50,000,000 legal abortions have been performed in the United States. For the past decade, the number of abortions have been dropping from year to year. The per capita number of abortions in the United States is more than Canada, but less than China. In the United States, African American women are over three times as likely as white women to get an abortion; Hispanic woman are over two times as likely to get an abortion as a white woman. Poverty plays a huge roll in abortions. 40% of all legal abortions are performed on women who live under the Federal Poverty Rate; 9% of all legal abortions are performed on women who live above 220% of the Federal Poverty Rate. Finally, twice as many abortions are performed (per capita) in the Northeast part of the United States as the Midwest.

There are so many sides to this argument, it can make one dizzy. They range from one extreme which believes a woman has the right to choose, and what happens with her body, including a fetus, is her business. The other extreme is that all life is sacred and abortion is akin to infanticide, or murder. In between are the laissez-faire viewpoints. Some don't care as long as tax dollars are not spent; others say abortions reduce down the numbers of a particular party, religion or race; still others see abortion as birth control which saves tax dollars in the long run.

I have no clue to what the answer is. As a former negotiator, I was trained to always find a solution by first determining middle ground for compromise. On this issue I am stumped. Middle ground has and still proves to be elusive. All I know is this - the issue of the unborn was addressed thousands of years ago in Psalm 139, verses 13-16 (NIV) in the Bible:

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Other than that, guidance on this issue is not clearly addressed anywhere else, not even our Constitution. What I do know is this - it was decided in 1973 as a legal matter, when it really is a moral matter. More than any Supreme Court decision, how our country continues to morally evolve (or devolve) will be the ultimate arbiter on issues such as abortion. Until then, we will continue to disrespectfully disagree with each other.

Earlier I said I had a personal feeling on this matter. It is simply this - every person I have met or known of, no matter what race, nationality, or origin - regardless if the finest of deeds have been performed or the most heinous of crimes committed, have one very important thing in common. All, without exception, have been fearfully and wonderfully made.