One must look at the effect on the wellbeing of the child, beyond the mere “mental health” of the mother. It is generally considered to be a worse fate to die than to be depressed, otherwise we would be euthanizing those suffering from depression.
It is also necessary to consider that the child has rights to life that trump the “choice” of the mother. It is even possible to state that the mother has already made her choice before she fell pregnant.
Choice is not always the ability to do whatever one wants, it is often merely the capacity to decide between two conflicting outcomes. If it were freedom the woman desired, it has already been exercised before she fell pregnant. So it is not really a question of choice, but a question of natural consequences, which the mother should either live with or, through adoption, make arrangements for others to deal with. Any such action would be a lesser evil than allowing the child to be murdered.
To claim that the unborn child is acting as a parasite which the woman may defend herself from is nothing less than a wilful shutting of the eyes to the laws of nature. No species lasts very long if it considers its own young to be some sort of horrific curse, and yet through five decades of propaganda, we have been left with many women afraid of their own fertility.
In any case, when one acts in self defence, in law it must be proportionate and reasonable in relation to the assault complained of. It cannot seriously be suggested that it would be proportionate to kill an aggressor that has no control over its actions, will only do so for a period of nine months, and will be very unlikely in that time to cause serious injury to the mother.
Even in cases of rape, it does not justify the killing of the child to save the mother’s regrettable mental pain; allowing the child to be born would be the lesser evil, especially if it could be put up for adoption.
There is also the problem that having such easy access to abortion will cause women suffering from self doubt, depression or a host of the other pricks and pangs of life, to make a rash decision and abort a baby that she would otherwise have kept, or at least given to a couple who would provide for it, once she accepted the hand that fate had dealt her.
Abortion kills the innocent, makes murderers out of vulnerable women and transgresses the natural laws of motherly love, and for these reasons, we can see that from a Christian standpoint, abortion is completely indefensible.
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