I believe in magic and have developed greater appreciation of the irrational, illogical side of life as I get older. There is nothing rational or logical about falling in love, but anyone lucky enough to experience it knows something magical happens. Watching a planted seed grow into a plant or when a glorious experience of oneness with one's beloved mate and later birth of a baby can be pure magic if such appreciation is allowed. Emotional response is not rational and to try to rationalize or logicize any of it is at best pointless and at worst deprivational. It simply is.
I had an abortion at age 20, and had no trauma experience at the time, because I didn't want a child. Some years later though, before I ever considered that marriage or children might be something I'd ever want, I did experience vague misgivings, though nothing terribly distressing. I later got married and had a son and found it all to be an entirely magical experience that I will always treasure my good fortune in being allowed to experience.
Some years later abortion became the first classic issue where I clearly saw both sides. Rabidly pro-choice for decades, I got into a discussion once with a particularly eloquent pro-life speaker and for the first time, for only an instant, I actually *felt* the full immorality of the abortion act, an immorality so strong that it dwarfed all pro-choice rationales combined into petty selfish insignificance. But that awareness didn't last and I fell right back out of that flip-flop because I felt that such an awareness still gave me no right to remove that choice for anyone else. Within a short time afterward, I'd experienced other momentary flip-flops on a few long held standpoints in my carefully constructed personal philosophy, which left me badly confused. I apparently can't see both sides clearly at the same time, and I suspect this is true for all of us. We may try to be middle of the roaders, but usually one side or the other will affix itself as our personal belief at any given time. At least that has been my experience.
So I believe that safe abortions must be kept legal and that it is up to the *private* parties involved to make the choice of whether to avail themselves to that service or not. With the classic issues like abortion and capital punishment, it will always be a struggle to live "within the tension" of polarities, to coin a Thomas Moore phrase.
--tully