 Few topics produce the emotional reaction that surrounds the issue of abortion. Extremists control the debate, whether they are those who consider it an absolute evil or an unconditional right. One group rejects to obey religious confidence to secular law as required by the separation between church and state, while the other side is unwilling to recognize that not only the mother - but also the child, father, and society - all have rights and responsibilities that must be considered.
Secular law is a nonreligious approach to the determination of correct conduct. It is required for providing a fair and just social order. While religious rules often settle on personal conduct, they cannot be used to control civil law if we hope to exist in a peace of a multi-cultural society that allows for divergent forms of worship - including the right not to. When reached its highest level this idea is applied across the social spectrum, and not in a accident manner reflecting the unavoidable shifts in political authority.
In spite of a person’s readiness to subordinate themselves to the rule of law, we all keep on holding our personal beliefs: there is no way everyone will be a hundred percent satisfied with any answer to this, or many other subjects framing our public dispute. Our best method is a compromise based on a rational determination of the rights of all parties concerned. For lots of people the idea that intervention at the beginning of pregnancy - such as with a morning after pill - is murder is difficult to accept: conversely, few people cannot understand how a late term abortion of a fetus that looks just like a newborn baby cannot be considered the killing of a child. Our answer lies somewhere between these two end points.
The decisive aspect in setting guidelines for abortion resides with when the fetus receives the rights of a person. This definition of the termination is for society to make, and it determines that time when a mother’s greater responsibility goes to her child rather than herself. Suggested here is that this point is achieved when the fetus develops a reasonable chance of survival outside of the mother’s womb using the common medical technology of the period. These days this point falls somewhere within the second trimester - months four through six - of the pregnancy. Realizing that many variables come into play means this point may have to be determined on a case-by-case basis, and it may move over time as medicine advances.
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