The Hanger argument

It seems harder and harder to defend the pro-choice argument. Every day there are stories of criminals respecting life, extremely pre-mature babies being born alive and not as a blob of tissue (surprise), and continuing research that babies still inside the womb feel pain. One excuse that I frequently encounter is if abortion is outlawed we will return to the days when there were back-alley abortion clinics and women used hangers from their home to terminate the pregnancy. The argument being the only solution is to have "safe" abortion on the demand. (This is interesting from the pro-life view: whether an abortionist uses a vacuum and/or scissors or a woman uses a hanger to kill her baby son or baby daughter, the outcome for the child is the same. But this is irrelevant to this post.) A young father was recently charged with terminating his girlfriend's pregnancy by hitting her repeatedly in the abdomen with a baseball bat. Although this first sounds like an assault, the incident occurred over the course of two weeks. Both, the mother and father of the unborn were involved in trying to kill the baby. One particular paragraph stuck out in my mind: According to Michigan State Police detectives, the youths intentionally caused the death of the fetus by striking the mother's abdomen with the twenty-two inch bat over the course of two weeks. The parents of the youths were apparently unaware of the pregnancy and the decision to abort it. [Emphasis added] The parents of the killed baby indeed made a decision. There decision was that the baby was not worth living. This is the same decision that about 4,000 mothers and fathers have been making each day since 1973. This is the "choice" that is necessary for each woman, the choice that has liberated women. There is really little difference between the illegal outcome the father made to use a bat to kill the child, and the legal outcome to go to Planned Parenthood and have someone else do the very same thing. I find it astonishing that people can be so appalled by what the father did and still militantly support the right to abortion any time, for any reason. The lack of respect for the life is the same whether you kill the child yourself, or pay someone else to do it for you. There is really no difference. Yet the same choices were made, with the exact same result. Update: The Detroit News has weighed in. They add that after the baby was still born, the mother of the boy helped him bury the baby in their back yard. I wonder if the boy's mother will have any charges brought against her. One interesting passage from Planned Parenthood:

Lori Lamerand, vice president of the Planned Parenthood Mid-Michigan Alliance, said pregnant teens have safer options available than terminating a pregnancy without a doctor. "It's always tragic when people resort to such drastic measures, when there are appropriate, safe medical measures are available," Lamerand said.

What she means is "... medical measure are available, to do the exact same thing." Acknowledging that what this boy accomplished is no different that what would have resulted if he and his pregnant girlfriend would have gone to Planned Parenthood.