Abortion continued

Thinking about abortion has me also thinking about euthanasia. I don't personally see how one can go without the other for long. If society decides killing is admissible for no reason other than inconvenience, then the two are natural bed-fellows. It matters little how young or how old you are, if you're a certain type of pain in the ass to someone, you'd better be ready to die.

Proponents of euthanasia and abortion tend not to frame their argument as such, but that's the gist of it. Usually we hear them speak of personal freedom, mercy, a right to choose and a right to die. Superficially, it all seems very reasonable. Shouldn't we have the ability to decide when we die, or to decide what happens within our bodies? Isn't opposition to abortion and euthanasia simply another right-wing restriction designed to stifle one's natural inclinations toward killing small children, the infirm, the disabled, and the old?

In the face of brief scrutiny, the pro-choice and pro-euthanasia arguments decay rather quickly. Each argument rests upon the assumption that things will be worse if the person in question does not die. Seldom discussed is the courageous woman who put up with peer condemnation for not choosing to terminate her pregnancy and raised an international and NHL hockey star. One never hears about the unfortunate woman in Australia who killed herself in front of a group of supporters, thinking she had terminal cancer, only for the autopsy to discover the opposite. In the view of the pro-death movement, these are mere aberrations: abortions and suicides are always the right thing to do. There are no mistakes - just move on. Rinse & repeat. Die, die, die.