Deciding, Logically

ROE V. WADE was "passed" during my senior year in high school, with graduation starting to loom over the horizon. I have a pretty good memory of hearing about it on the evening news in January, 1973. but I can't seem to remember my reaction to it, if any. I can't seem to remember anything at all about my reaction to it at the time, which is strange because by then I had already become politically aware, interested, and active, having the previous fall successfully campaigned for the reelection of President Nixon, which to me at the time seemed eminently justified, but soon thereafter came to seem insane, at best. My best guess is that I agreed with Row v. Wade in late January, 1973, and probably wondered why it took so long to arrive. Much as I dislike the jist of the decision striking down Roe which seems likely to be handed down by the nation's highest court, I can see that it might all turn out for the best after all. I heard an intellligent conservative say on the radio that nine people shouldn't decide whether we kill babies. Although I strongly disagree with and object to his wording, I can see his point. I might respectfully suggest that most doctors and medical and biological professionals and scientists agree that many if not most abortions do not kill a baby, but rather, terminate the continued development of what would eventually have become a baby. There is a difference, a difference which is important enough to clarify honestly, rather than deliberatly obfsucate with misleading words. In some united states abortion will be legal, in ohters it will not be. And, why not? The overarching battle will be to determine which viewpoint can take over the federal government. Federal mood swings. Many people, including legislators and magistrates, turn to two inviolable sacred sources for guidance and direction on abortion; The U.S Constitution, and the Christian Bible. Problem is, neither one says anything, anything at all, about abortion. Why we keep looking, or why we ever started looking in either document is the first place for guidance or divine decree about what to do about abortion - when it simply isn't there - is one of those questions for the ages, an eternal mystery, and, maybe, just maybe, one of those "only in America" situations. When the question of whether abortion should be legal in the United States first and finally cane to the Supreme Court, the immediate presumption was: "The answer is, surely must be, in the constitution. The answer to everything is in the constitution." Nobody seemed to know why, or seemed to ever figure out that, no, the answer to abortion is not in the constitution, and never will be, unless we or somebody puts it there. We still keep looking for it there, in both the constitution and the Bible, as if by so doing it will magically come into being, and we will eventually find it. Before we can go any farther in solving the problem, we must somehow dispossess ourselves of the false fantasy that either one of these venerable doceuments will ever tell us anything about abortion, and that therefore, heaven forbid, we must decide for ourselves.