What you believe about the supernatural has a powerful influence over how you treat the natural, physical world. For instance, if you think life begins right at the moment of conception, you may feel the need to deny the right of others to terminate unwanted pregnancies. It wouldn’t matter if you lacked any real evidence of this; it’s inconsequential. Some can be so convinced of this fact they would be willing to try any tactic to deny the ability for others to seek, what is essentially, a medical treatment.

In Denver, a Planned Parenthood facility is being built. Although they had attempted to construct it in secret, word quickly got out, and now the Colorado Right to Life organization is protesting its construction. Their objection is based on their theological conviction contraception is evil, all fetuses should be brought to term, and any planning beyond getting married and having more kids is the work of the devil.

All of this joyful protest would normally have gone right over my head, had it not been for an interesting article I read in the New York Times. It involved a study that found 90% of pregnant women who have had a Down syndrome test choose to abort. Now I’m no mathematician, but the pro life group in the US doesn’t have those kinds of staggering numbers. That’s because when the issue having an abnormal pregnancy comes biting them in the face, many pro-choice have to agree that life can often be relative cruel and hard, and the benefits of being able to avoid the burden of a serious mental handicap often outweighs their supernatural convictions. In other words, the real world doesn’t always obey your simple, black and white, good and evil platitudes.

This is what the issue boils down to. People who are pro-choice and believe an individual should have sovereignty over their own bodies don’t force young teenagers in Texas into having abortions. Many of them will quietly respect their neighbor’s right to procreate and raise children in their own fashion. Pro-lifers, however, do not generally have the same respect of their counterparts. They wish to suppress and deny these rights, if only due to their religious conviction. Whether they like it or not, the issue of when life develops, and deserves the same rights as a breathing, thinking human being, is not a black and white issue, just as the termination of fetuses with Down syndrome isn’t. Just what is the right thing to do?

I don’t pretend to know the answer. I only hope that we give people the chance to make the right decisions. In this case, it’s to allow someone the option of choosing the direction and course of their lives. I, for one, would never protest a facility that offers choices to people, since perhaps one day, I may be faced with a similar decision to make.