Abortion has long been a controversial topic. Many Americans feel strongly about this subject because it involves such important issues as life and death, ones religious beliefs, the health of women and who controls women's bodies.
             Can anything new be said about abortion? After more than a quarter of a century of an insane consideration one might think not. But there is at least one point of view that is hardly ever heard the screams of "Murder!" and "keep your prayers off my ovaries!" It deserves a full and reasoned explanation, but it might even give off some light on the controversies about the truth of Dr. Henry Foster as Surgeon General and about disturbances of abortion clinics. It is that abortion is excusable only in extreme cases, however the state must respect the right to get and perform abortions. In other words, it is possible to be both a pro-life and a pro-choice.
             As many people of both sexes instinctively recognize, abortion has to be looked at as a question not of law, but of right and moral conduct. Begin then with the position, common to most religions and many naturalistic systems of morality, of respect for life-all life, but especially human. It seems impossible to deny that the developing fetus is a possible human being. The fetus from the very beginning is provided with all the genetic information that will enable its development into a full human person.
             Which is to say never. An abortion is not exactly a murder and in most legal codes and systems of morality there is such a thing as excusable homicide. It might be helpful to look at the case from a perspective other than the Orthodox Christian one. Any act that increases the total of human suffering is immoral, and any act that reduces suffering is moral. Some births that result from rape or threaten the mother's life could increase suffering, and the abortions that prevent them are sadly excusable.
             But t...