Any time I tell someone I am a conservative, or that I traditionally vote for Republican or Independent candidates, I occasionally get asked my position on one of the core topics, abortion.

Now, a real conservative, or at least the kind that listen to Rush, are probably Christian or Catholic and believe in the right-to-life automatically, without question. Being religiously agnostic, despite being baptized Catholic, my stance on abortion has always been mostly pro-choice. We live in an age where conforming to an archaic notion that our lives are in a constant state of judgement by an invisible man upstairs has become less relevant than fifty years ago. Being agnostic is not the same as being atheist though, I do believe something exists out there, but it is not likely what any modern religion defines, it’s more of something that science-fiction might discover some day, like a parallel dimension, or a giant cloaked ship in the sky that collects the dead and brings them to “Heaven”. I’m still holding out for trans-humanism though, and hopefully being converted into a robot.

But since the topic of having kids has been on our minds, the topic of abortion and how to deal with certain situations have also been on our minds. Even though I am pro-choice, I don’t condone abortion done out of convenience. The idea that two people willingly have sex with each other, and end up with a child either on purpose or by accident, conveys a sense of responsibility to me. My ex and I may have not worked out back then, but if by someone she got pregnant, I would not ask her to abort a life because I can’t be bothered to take responsibility. That’s not religion or conservative ideals talking, that’s being a responsible, moral human being with integrity. It’s something few men have anymore, because we’ve conditioned society to do away with the morals and values religion taught young men in the 1950’s and didn’t have anything better to replace it with. Instead, young men, especially in poor urban neighborhoods, regard sex as a status symbol and children as an unwanted crimp on their solo lifestyle. These children grow up never knowing what a father is, and turning to the same lifestyle they see in other men around them, believing it to be acceptable because nothing stronger presented itself. It’s going to take a major social shift to repair this damage, and one I fear will not be had in my generation.

Sadly, it gets worse. We’ve become so far detached and removed from ourselves that we don’t even acknowledge life at conception. At worst, we’re conditioned to believe it is a mass, or a tumor, until it actually develops features. Women’s rights and Roe v. Wade have helped usher in ideas that when you get pregnant, the first question we ask is “Are you going to keep it?” To me, it’s a disgusting look at how devolved we’ve become as a first-world civil society that we’re willing to give up children, the unequivocal future of our culture, society, and species, because we are physically or emotionally unable to care for it. Here you have something that I frankly find incredible from a biological standpoint, something that took you and another person to physically do, and you want to end it because you’re not in the ideal living situation?

But this is where “choice” comes in for me. The choice isn’t so much a free-wielding choice, it’s a situational-choice. If you were raped by someone and got pregnant, you should have a choice to abort it. Some may argue otherwise, but it was a consequence of an involuntary action outside of your control. If you had a one-night stand with someone and got pregnant, you should have a choice to abort it, but I would criticize that action based on the fact that unlike the previous scenario, you had control. You could have walked away. The consequence is that you willingly went ahead, and no matter if you took precautions or not, the very chance of a baby happening is taken when you engage in sex. Abstinence education works because not having sex, does not make babies. Fact. Indisputable. Prove me wrong.

Probably the most morally bankrupt and disheartening thing of all though is when it happens without any acknowledgement. When you’ve convinced yourself that you are getting an abortion, the fetus is no longer wanted, and you cannot associate anything personal with it in order to maintain the facade that it’s just another doctor’s visit. Instead of a fetus, or a baby, it’s growth, a tumor, a mass. Abortion is instead an extraction, removal, cleaning, any amount of synonyms that keep you from saying you ended a human life willingly. You tell your friends after that it was all routine, that everything went without a hitch. Even worse, if you’ve done it before, it’s like going out for fast-food, or visiting the dentist. That blatant disregard for the sanctity of life is what many conservatives object over when it comes to abortion laws. Because at this point, there is no stopping abortion, it’s gonna happen, and most GOP lawmakers know it, but for liberals to insist that everything personal that connects you to the facts of life be stripped in order for it to be socially and morally acceptable, is frankly fully disgusting. That is why you see laws attempting to educate women on what is happening, and mandate that abortions not be carried out after a certain period, because liberals prefer you to be naive and stupid. It satisfies their agenda, what agenda that is I have no idea. I honestly don’t understand how anyone in the world can knowingly end a potential life for any reason other than a medical one. I end up supporting choice only because it is socially acceptable to do so.

But the biggest slap in the face I feel are to those who want children. Women who cannot have children, or women who are willing to adopt children. There are millions of people on this planet, and yet children are sent to halfway houses and orphanages because those who don’t abort, give them up anyway. To tell someone who wants a child that you’re just going to abort yours because you don’t care, just how insensitive can that be? I am not a woman, but even as a man I find that nothing short of morally bankrupt.

Choice is a thing. Choice is what makes America, America. But in the hands of some, choice can also be dangerous.