Well, thanks to Angry in Toronto, the subject has finally been put to me. But before I weigh in on the great abortion debate, I want to make it clear that I do not particularly welcome the subject on this site, and it is not really up for further discussion.

As I said below, I am thinking of joining Curves gym this month. Angry pointed out their support of pro-life charities. I know all about it. I am a conservative, and a Republican (or Tory here in Canuckistan). I am a woman. For the most part, the two groups go well together. Except over abortion.

When I was single, I had a great deal of fun. The fun I had was careful, and never put anyone at risk for disease or pregnancy. I was obsessive about protection, and all the other good things that some pro-lifers and the Catholic church lump in with abortion. Because I had a head on my shoulders, and paid attention to what I was doing, I never needed to resort to an abortion. Not even after I was raped. But I liked knowing that if all else failed, I had one final option.

I do not wish to have children, and I have made this clear in the past, so it's not news to any of my regular readers. Because of this, I must remain ever vigilant against some stray sperm with nefarious intent. A simple solution would be a tubal ligation, but according to doctors I have consulted on both sides of the Atlantic, they will not do it until I am over thirty, or I've had at least one pregnancy. Not one child - one pregnancy. Just what are they suggesting I do? Get pregnant and abort, just so I never have to get pregnant again? With that sick plan in mind from my doctors, I'm sorry that abortion is so readily available, because if it wasn't, they wouldn't make such a horrific suggestion to me.

On the other hand (there are too many hands to this argument), if someone goes out and gets themselves pregnant without meaning to, they might very well have been foolish - or downright stupid. I can be smug and say that, because I got away with it. But how smug do I want to be? If a girl of say 17 years gets pregnant because she has a history of promiscuity or unsafe sex, there is a really good chance that it's going to scare some sense into her. And once scared - really and truly terrified - it might change her for the better. It might make her more responsible in her sexual life. I don't think that her youth needs to end there. Like going bankrupt, there is a final step you can take. It's one you have to really think about, and have to accept deep inside yourself for what it means, but that choice is there.

Yet, I have seen that choice abused firsthand. A girl I went to highschool with got pregnant, but not scared. She's had two abortions. I don't think what she did was right. One abortion is choosing your life over that of someone else's, and some of us may have to do that at some point in our lives, in some way or another. Two abortions is a senseless waste.

I have seen the same photos as everyone else: the curled up foetus at 6 weeks, ten weeks, three months. They are disgusting, but I am not moved by them. I have seen too much death in those I am attached to, to mourn the death of someone I've never met, and didn't plan to. Show me a woman with cancer, a woman who weighs 43lbs because her body is eating itself and the chemo is making it worse, and you'll see a cause I will fight for. And don't give me the "What if the baby grew up to cure cancer?" speech. It takes teams of people to find a cure for a disease. If my hypothetical baby grew up to take the credit for it, it would only be because he happened to be the front-man of his research team.

I have already said in my Middle-Right Manifesto on the homepage that if you want an abortion, go pay for it yourself, and make sure it's a clean one. Above all, I don't want to see backroom abortions happening again. To see what people did back before Roe vs Wade was what truly made my skin crawl. Not the photos of the little man inside - the photos of women bleeding to death silently, made to feel ashamed because they had sex. Sex has been around forever, and abortion has been around almost as long. It will be around as long as women continue to disrespect their bodies by having unprotected sex. And with my history, I'd be a liar to preach abstinance. So instead I choose to preach education.

If I were to find myself in an unfortunate situation today, I have another option. Not to raise the baby, but to give it away. I already know who I would give it to, because they are so desperate for a child, and the waiting lists are so long. I have, in fact, already offered to do this for them, and they have declined on the grounds that it is too much to ask of someone. But if there was no turning back, they would welcome this child into their stable and loving home.

So although it sounds callous for me to say it - I really do not care about the abortion debate one way or the other. I have other avenues to explore, but someone else might not. I am not angry or supportive toward either side of the debate, because I can clearly see both sides, and why both factions feel the way they do. This is perhaps the only major political issue that I am completely neutral on, and that is why it has never appeared on this blog, nor will it again.

The gym I plan to join supports pro-life organizations. So do most Republicans and conservatives. I align myself with these political entities not because of abortion, but because of other values that are like my own. You can't agree with an entire political or social philosophy all of the time. That makes a person a sycophant. Or a raving radical, which is much worse. So yes, pro-Iraq war, pro-war on terror, pro-tax cuts, anti-gay marriage, but pro-choice.

I welcome discussion on all topics on this board, but I warn you now, I will not tolerate the spam associated with extremists on either side of this particular fence. I am no more intersted in what the hairy-chinned feminists have to say than I am in seeing those little alien-like pictures again. Neither will move me, and neither will sway me. Both will simply serve to annoy me.

If anyone needs me, I'll be at the gym.