While abortion is one of the most heated topics of debate in our country, it’s also one of the most misunderstood, with many people – especially abortion proponents – being woefully ignorant of the misapplied logic behind Roe v. Wade. Roe, of course, is the landmark 1973 decision that not only declared abortion to be legal, but a fundamental constitutional right that cannot be denied. This decision can be summed up in three words: Just plain wrong. And when I say “wrong,” I don’t just mean from a moral standpoint, but also from a legal standpoint: Roe doesn’t have a legality to stand on. For a fuller analysis of the sheer legal lunacy of this decision, see Mark Levin’s Men In Black; but for now, I ask that you hear me out, because what I’m about to say won’t be pointed out in most mainstream news sources.

Out of all the individual aspects comprising the abortion debate, the thing that sticks in my craw most painfully on the moral side of the issue is the often-voiced notion of “the health of the mother.” Thanks largely to Sandra “I’m a liberal in conservatives’ clothing” Day O’Connor, it’s nearly entrenched in legal minds and the public’s mind that any restriction on abortion must always allow this exception: that an abortion must be allowed to take place if the health of the mother is in jeopardy. Now, I’m going to give you three seconds to figure out the one absurdity inherent in that principle. Ready? Go. One … two … three. Did you get it? Well, hopefully you did, but just in case you didn’t: Why is it that proponents view the mother’s health as more important than the child’s? No wonder we can’t convince people that abortion is wrong; they think that the only person who matters in this situation is the mother. Why? Why is that? Tell me, if you please, because I want to know. On tonight’s CBS evening news, Eve Gartner of Planned Parenthood said that the mother’s health is paramount. Really? I’ll say it again – why is that? Why isn’t the baby’s health, the baby’s life, paramount? I don’t mean to sound cruel, but sometimes it’s nature’s course that the mother dies in childbirth – with humans as well as the animal kingdom. She dies so that the child gets to live. It seems selfish to me that the mother – someone who’s already had a chance to live – would prevent her child from getting to enjoy the same opportunity. It makes no sense to me; there are two people involved, but apparently only one who counts.

And did I say two? I should have said three. Yes, that’s right, don’t forget about the father. Yeah, yeah, spew all the liberal lines you want – “It’s the woman’s body; it’s her right to decide” – but it takes two to tango, so it should take two to decide. The child is half his, after all.

Some more ridiculousness for you to chew on (and maybe choke on), this from a Dan K. Thomasson column that appeared in the Sunday, Feb. 12, edition of the Kennebec Journal (Augusta, Maine). The background of the situation is this: Wal-Mart has refused to sell the morning-after abortion pill and is now being pressured to reverse its position. In his column, Thomasson rails against Wal-Mart’s anti-pill stance, stating that the company is not only undermining patients’ rights, but also putting people’s lives in jeopardy.

My first question for Thomasson is this: Why do you make this sound like a life-threatening situation for the mother? She’s not going to die if she doesn’t get the morning-after pill. On the other hand, if she does get ahold of the pill, the baby will die. Call it another case of screwed-up, “me first” ethics.

My next point of contention is this: Just because something is legal doesn’t mean that everyone has to like it – and it doesn’t mean that every business has to sell it. Free enterprise dictates that a company can sell any product it wants, so long as the product is legal. But nowhere does free enterprise – or the law, for that matter – dictate that a company must sell every legal product. Wal-Mart doesn’t sell cars, after all, even though they’re legal. Maybe we should force every Wal-Mart store to open a showroom. Or maybe we should force health-food stores to sell cigarettes.

Furthermore – and of much greater import, in my opinion – to force a pharmacist to dispense a medication that violates his religious beliefs (such as the morning-after pill) is a clear case of forcing him to go against the religious doctrine of his choice, which is a true violation of the First Amendment’s oft-misinterpreted free-exercise clause. Our Constitution grants religious freedom a much higher priority than health care – in fact, our Constitution doesn’t even mention health care, while it places religious freedom in the forefront of the Bill of Rights, which I can only presume means that the Founders viewed religious freedom – along with freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom to peaceably assemble – as being of the utmost importance. Abortion, on the other hand, is based on a so-called “right to privacy” (established in the Supreme Court’s 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision), a right based on one word – “liberty” – found in the phrase “life, liberty, or property” of the 5^th and 14^th amendments – amendments, by the way, that were intended, respectively, to protect people accused of crimes, and to ensure the rights of the newly freed slaves – both having nothing to do with privacy, sexuality or abortion.