Man, did you hear about what’s going down in South Dakota?

This morning I was listening about the potential changes to abortion laws in South Dakota and I really started thinking about both sides of the argument.

You have your pro-life folks, who believe abortion is wrong for various reasons. Some people like to put all of us in the crazy Christian category – you know, the folks who blow up abortion clinics? – but most times, that is not the case.

I am a Christian, but that is not the only reason why I don’t agree with abortion. And I do know that my beliefs may not mean much to Jenny Smith who’s pregnant today and not happy about the situation.

You also have your pro-choice contingent that focuses on the rights of a woman to choose whether or not she has a child. I agree with that in theory. It is my body and no one should be able to tell me what I can and cannot do with it.

So, South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds signed legislation Monday (March 6) banning nearly all abortions in the state, setting up a court fight aimed at challenging the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. The only women who could get abortions would be a mother who’s life would be in danger if she had the baby. Women who have been raped have no recourse.

Wow.

Now that’s some serious stuff. It got me thinking about what I truly believe in terms of abortion.

Reading the comments at the Globe and Mail, I read many pro-choicers saying, a fetus is not a baby, just a collection of tissues. A fetus cannot survive outside of its mother, therefore it does not have rights and the rights of the mother are paramount. Abortion is not murder.

Pro-lifers said that a fetus is a baby and has a right not to be murdered. It has a right, as the most vulnerable member of society to live.

Of course, you have idiots on both sides who do not know how to debate an issue without calling people names. I ignore them because they have nothing meaningful to add.

My question is: if it’s not murder to have an abortion, then is it murder to kick a pregnant woman in her stomach and kill the baby?

Don't get all bent out of shape -- the question is extreme, but so is what South Dakota’s governor wants to do. The only difference in the scenario is that one mother wants her baby and the other didn’t. So, after you calm down, what do you think using that definitions of fetus used by both pro-life and pro-choice.

Another facet of the argument is rape. A lot of people commented about the number of raped women who would suffer because of this new law. I thought it was a really good argument… but how many women who want abortions are rape victims?

I would bet the majority are women who had consensual sex – protected or not – and got pregnant. As an adult, you make your decisions, some good and some bad, some wrong and some right, but they are your decisions. You have to take responsibility for them.

Look at it like this: any man who you have sex with is potentially your baby’s father. Any woman you have sex with is potentially your baby’s mother. And if you have sex, you just may get pregnant, whether you use a condom, the pill or nothing at all.

I’m saying, some people will spend three weeks choosing a car and one night choosing the man or woman who will be their child’s parent.

It’s your right to decide what you do with your body, but it’s also your responsibility to make choices that won’t adversely affect you.

If more people took responsibility for their behaviour, this wouldn’t be an issue. Plain and simple.

But we don’t live in a perfect world where everyone makes well-thought out decisions about who they sleep with. Many times we act before we think and we end up in a whole lotta trouble because we didn’t take 10 minutes to really think about what we’re doing.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that any woman who made the decision to have an abortion has made an easy decision. I doubt she’s happily jaunting around somewhere on a beach. I think that it would tear a lot of women apart, but they just don’t see any other way. They may be encouraged to keep their children but there aren’t enough social programs to help them raise these children.

How do decide to keep a child if you’re struggling to survive yourself?

Herein lies the problem: if pro-lifers want women not to have abortion, there has to be help for them. Real help, not lip service. So, real help meaning affordable housing, daycare, training programs, education and more to give women with children an equal chance even if the baby wasn’t planned.

But even then, some will still demand that this little bag of cells and tissues sucking the energy out of you be terminated. We don’t live in a perfect world and this situation isn’t black and white.

Everyone has their reasoning for making the decisions they make. It’s certainly not my job to judge anyone because I know I’m not perfect and, thank God, I've never been in this situation. But sometimes, you have to see the situation from all sides, then you’ll really see what the truth is.