Tioga Herald

Not long ago, traveling north on I-95 near Boca Raton, I viewed a billboard with the words, “Barack Obama supports abortion.”

Now it’s the president’s business to file charges of libel.  But if my name were attached to that – and I have faced such a situation from a judgmental person who calls herself a “Christian” – I would be filing charges of libel.

I am against abortion, but I am also pro-choice.  I would work to encourage, if at all possible, someone whom I loved NOT to get an abortion.  I would frown upon anyone who uses abortion as a means of contraception.  Such a move shows a lack of responsibility.

But when it comes down to it, the choice of an abortion resides with the woman carrying the fetus.  I would also argue that the male who was involved in the action should have a say in the decision as well.  But the ultimate decision is the female carrying the fetus.

I support abortion in cases of rape and I don’t want to change the definition of rape – as does Allen West.

In 1901, the world lost my great-grandmother, Angeline MacLennon Eldridge, and her unborn child in pregnancy.  I have thought about this:  what if abortions DID exist in those days?  Would my great-grandmother been enabled to make a decision which would have saved HER life and allowed her to continue to have OTHER babies?  The anti-abortion advertisements about the loss of a child on a swing set is just as effective when considering the loss of life of mother AND baby, when abortions were illegal.

I believe in a positive world working to increase knowledge about being responsible, not a negative world which chooses to criminalize young women.  A negative world helps create an abortion black market which lacks hygiene, leading to the death of young females who might, at one point, forget the need to take responsibility.  And even then, we need to recognize that we are imperfect human beings with hormones raging at a young age.  We need to effectively come to grips with this situation, rather than invoking boneheaded criminalization solutions to deal with something called … HUMANS.

We are not “economic units,” as the character, Harvey Nigel Bains, says on the Britcom, Waiting for God… “We the people…”  Stop the lies, particularly those lies about President Obama and the lies on billboards purchased by high-powered people who thrive on deception and lying.