Unfortunately, we do not now live in a perfect world, and even though we certainly can make the world far better than it is now, it may never be perfect. Therefore, we must resolve the conflict between Pro-Choice advocates who feel that women should have the right to abortion services if needed, and Anti-Abortion advocates who believe that abortion is utterly wrong and should be illegal. And to resolve the conflict, we need to be rational and realistic.

The fact is that unplanned and unwanted pregnancies do occur, as they always have and always will. Furthermore, sometimes the impregnated woman either cannot afford to raise a child, or for some other reason would face hardship or problems if she were to have to give birth to a child. So, the question is whether women who find themselves in that predicament should have a choice in the matter, or not.

We should all understand why Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 U.S. law which established a woman’s right to abortion, was enacted. Prior to that, abortion was illegal in the U.S., and part of the reason the law was enacted was to protect women from being maimed or killed by botched illegal abortions. The mortality rate for women had been growing, and many people felt that such procedures contributed to the increase in deaths of women. (You can watch the great movie starring Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen, Love With a Proper Stranger, which helped to make people aware of the problem).

Furthermore, another part of the reason for making abortion legal was to reduce the rates of child abuse and neglect. The law acknowledged that those rates were as high as they were in large part because women felt they had no choice but to give birth when they got pregnant, even if they did not really want or could not afford to have a child.

Therefore, we need to face the fact that if abortion were to be made illegal again, deaths due to botched illegal abortions would once again occur, and child abuse and neglect would only increase, along with domestic violence. When parents have unwanted children, or cannot afford to sufficiently feed or clothe or house the children they have, it causes guilt, frustration and anger, and it creates many problems. Those are facts we must face, and they should mitigate any other considerations, if we are rational and realistic about this issue.

Of course, a small minority of people have claimed otherwise. But we should remember that the Anti-Abortion Crusade was begun in the late 1970s by sanctimonious leaders of the American Christian Right, because they thought they had found a cause and a fight they would win. They thought they would stand on high moral ground with this issue, but the record clearly shows otherwise. After all, many of their words and actions have been bigoted and hypocritical (as they have typically been regarding other issues as well), and they have caused a lot of conflict, division, anger, violence, death, grief, and suffering.

Fortunately, the most malicious and hypocritical of the so-called “Pro-Life” (Anti-Abortion) forces have stopped bombing medical clinics and stopped killing health professionals to try to impose their will and force their beliefs on the rest of us. But they certainly haven’t gone away. They are still causing grief and despair for many women, despite the fact that they are in a small minority.

Polls show that most of us still feel their anti-abortion crusade is misguided and wrong, because most of us feel that abortion should be legal. Most of us feel that the leaders of the anti-abortion forces are arrogant and offensive, especially since some of them still harass and harangue young pregnant women who have enough trouble as it is. Hard feelings still persist because of all that, and it is one of the main reasons people are so divided and polarized over this issue.

Of course, bigoted and hypocritical right-wing preachers like Pat Robertson are largely responsible for that. After all, he said things like this:  “(Planned Parenthood) is teaching kids to fornicate, teaching people to have adultery, every kind of bestiality, homosexuality, lesbianism....”

Robertson deceptively tried to demonize Planned Parenthood and the Pro-Choice Movement (along with all other liberals and progressives), and the whole anti-abortion movement was fueled by such deceptive and inflammatory rhetoric, spouting from the mouths of people who loudly and hypocritically claimed to be Christians.

The murder and assassination of doctors and medical clinic staff, the bombing of medical clinics, and the harassment and intimidation of troubled pregnant women in crisis were a very predictable result. After all, “religious” zealots seem to think they can do no wrong if they do it in the “name of God.” And terrorists, whether they claim to be Christians or Jews or Muslims, have no problem with committing mayhem, murder and destruction of property if they believe it is destroying “evil” as they self-righteously judge it.