Suppose a person walks into a doctor's office with a hurting leg.  The pain is extreme!  The doctor takes a look at it, and says, "You'll be fine.  Just take two extra-strength Tylenol every four hours and let me know in a week if it is still hurting."  After a week, the pain is excruciating!  The patient returns, and the doctor, without even looking at the leg, says, "Here's a prescription for Tylenol III, you know, the good stuff!  This will take care of you."  After a few days, the patient is in total agony and, being dissatisfied with the doctor's diagnosis, sees another doctor.  This doctor, in total disbelief at his colleague's diagnosis (or lack thereof) says to the patient, "You have a broken leg!  Infection has set in!  If you had waited any longer, your leg would have gangrene and we would have to amputate!"  This doctor puts the leg in a cast, makes the proper prescriptions, and gives the patient instructions on how to take care of the leg.

If you were a friend or family member of this person, what would you say about the first doctor?  Would you say he is a water-fowl doctor, you know, "Quack, quack"?  What was wrong with his treatment of the patient?  My wife, a nurse, would tell you that he treated the symptom, not the cause of the pain.

Are we who are pro-life like the first doctor?  Is calling for overturning Roe v Wade just treating a symptom?  What are the real issues behind the popularity of the abortion option?

From my vantage point, the real issues are the prevalent attitude in our culture that it's ok to have sex with any consenting person that you want to.  Of course, the visible issue is unwanted pregnancies, but the attitude that sex is something you do for fun, or you do with someone you have dated once or twice that you think you love, or you do someone who is married to someone else - this attitude is what leads to action, which leads to women getting pregnant and not wanting the babies.  It's the centuries-old maxim that attitude produces ideas, which produce action, in this case, sexual intercourse outside of the marriage bond.

Ok, ok.  I hear some of you saying "There he goes!  Sex outside of marriage!  This guy is beating a dead horse, sounding the alarm of all the outdated victorian ideas of prune-faced people of old."  Maybe so, but the question remains:  Why are so many women willing to teminate their pregnancies, to "get rid" of the innocent baby living and growing inside them?

I say that making abortion illegal is simply treating the symptom, wanting something that would make us pro-life folks feel like we had actually done some good for our country.  Wouldn't it be better to treat the cause and not the symptom?  Wouldn't it be better to talk to our young people about the reality of having sex and the responsibility of raising a child?  Shouldn't we talk to people about sex being a beautiful thing, not just a play-toy?  And how about all of the emotions wrapped up with it?  Shouldn't we talk to the young men we know about what kind of shameless weasels they would be if they slept with a girl just to have some fun, and then dump her when she gets pregnant?  And what about the lasting emotional pain and guilt that women suffer after having an abortion?  And lastly, how about the teenage girl who gets pregnant, who is getting a lot of pressure from her family and friends, and doesn't know what to do?

I say that being a friend is better than being an accuser, that putting your arm around that young girl that got pregnant and saying, "We love you and will be with you through your pregnancy" is better than heaping more guilt on her, that putting your arm around the young man who got her pregnant and say "We are here for you too.  Let's work with this", is much better that wanting to pin a scarlet letter on each of them.  As a follower of Jesus, I say, let's show them the love and compassion that Jesus would show.  After all, isn't that how Jesus changed the world?