Pro-choice vs Pro-life

For the last 15 years, a brain-damaged Florida woman has layed on a hospital bed with a feeding tube attached.

Her name Terri Schiavo and she is in a persistent vegetative state.

For the past seven years, her husband and legal guardian has fought bitter court battles with her family over whether to remove her feeding tube and thus allowing her to die.

While she did not leave any written wishes if she were to be incapacitated, her husband contends his wife would not want to be kept alive artificially. Her parents, on the other hand, argues she had no such death wish and believe she could get better with rehabilitation.

It seems however that this saga is coming to an end. The feeding tube was removed last Friday under a state court order. Depending on which camp you subscribe to, you see either a woman liberated of the pain of living a meaningless life or one whose last hope of living is being snuffed out "barbarically", as her family describes it.

I have always been a big pro-choice supporter. In fact I still am. Yes, life is precious but I do not believe that it is something I would want to preserve at all cost. Especially if the cost is independence and dignity. If a pregnancy is unwanted, I believe it is better for both the mother and the child-to-be that it is aborted; if a disease renders me unable to communicate either via speech or bodily gestures, I would rather be dead. Is it not more painful to watch myself deteriorate to someone unrecognizable and becoming a financial drain for my loved ones than to die?

I agree though that legalizing euthanasia or abortion presents certain opportunities of abuse. I most certainly do not want to see young women treat abortion as contraception and disrespect the santity of creating life. Nor do I wish to have elderly folks forced into euthanasia by pressures from family and relatives. But I believe these are issues that laws and regulations can work to prevent.

After all, aren't our justice systems based on faith that it will be able to differentiate between the good and the bad?
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