Today, January 22, is, for many, a day of infamy.  It is on this day in 1973 that the United States Supreme Court upheld the right of a woman to have an abortion.  Women, the Court decreed, have an innate right to privacy and the freedom to choose what medical procedures they would undergo and which ones they would not.  A woman's body is her own.  She may do with it as she pleases.

     Although the total argument filled some sixty pages, I have described its essentials here.  Simply put, it has to do with a woman's right to choose.
     Them's fighting words, indeed.  This decision unleashed a cultural war in America that continues, unabated, to this day.  Repeatedly and vociferously, advocates on either sde of the argument have locked horns, be it on the street, in the legislative arena, in the courts to ensure victory for their cause.  It's been extremely polarizing.
     In the best of all possible worlds, we would not need abortion.  But we live in a broken world.  Things happen.  Yes, abortion is a tragic solution to a perennial problem.  No argument there.
     Abortions, however, do not happen in a vacuum.  They are culturally driven and conditioned.  Many abortion opponents seem to overlook this.  Many of the people who so strongly condemn abortion will in the same breath condemn and limit birth control; reject any legislation that calls for additional funds for pre-natal and post-natal care for the poor; limit government assistance for poor single mothers; look askance at any effort to enlarge the scope of sex education; fight against funding for health care for children; restrict women, forcibly, from obtaining the abortion that, as of this writing, remains their constitutional right; marginalize unwed mothers; look down on churches that are working to counsel women who are contemplating an abortion; and, in a particularly poignant point of misalignment, welcome and invite and promote the death penalty.
     You can't have it both ways.  If you oppose abortion, do so consistently.  Don't let Christian bubbles and tribal loyalties keep you from seeing the big picture.  God doesn't; why should you?