My name is Jenna (What's your's? *offers a cyber-handshake*) and I'd like to talk to you about your views on abortion, a 1-on-1 debate if you will. I understand your position that life is sacred and any conceived child deserves the chance to be born. On this point, I'm in complete agreement with you. Abortion sucks, and people who have one after another without compunction ought to be slapped and sterilized. However, as much as I may feel compassion for the unborn, I feel every bit as much for the terrified, unprepared woman/girl who doesn't want to be pregnant, have a baby, or get any more involved in the reproductive process than she already is. I don't pass judgement or feel contempt and declare that since she made one little mistake (and trust me, the mistake itself can seem INCREDIBLY trivial compared to the consequence) she should suffer whatever fate nature has intended.

I feel that until a human is capable of drawing its own breath and consuming its own food, it's a part of its mother's body, same as an arm or a leg. I don't wish to bestow upon women the right to kill so much as to have that part of her body removed. (If we could just invent an artificial uterus or perfect uterine transplantation, we could fix it all but alas!) I've had an abortion, so I know the mentality of a frightened and overwhelmed young girl. I didn't go into the clinic thinking "kill it, kill it, kill it" so much as "get it out of my body before it DOES develop into a baby that requires my care and attention." To this day, I feel that given the situation I was in and the monumental fool I had sex with, I did that embryo an ENORMOUS favor. I didn't want the child inside me, and I even resented it for being conceived. No child should be incubated or born with that kind of vibe coming out of its mother. I believe in chi & spiritual energy and trust me, it's just bad voodoo all around.

Too existential for you? Yeah, I figured. OK, here's what would have actually happened. The drunken goober who knocked me up and wanted me to be his woman for eternity would have (figuratively speaking, of course) grabbed that baby by the ankle and used it to beat me into submission for the rest of everyone's life or until he got bored with the game. I actually planned on sucking it up and going through the adoption process but he swore he'd put a stop to that, fight for custody and if I wouldn't be with him, sue me for child support and win 'cause awwww, doesn't everyone just love a devoted daddy? He made no secret of the fact that our baby was his ticket into my life for all eternity. Clearly, he underestimated me. I went crying to MY daddy, got his platinum card, and hauled my bumpkin butt to the big city for one of them there suckification procedures. (Indeed, devoted daddies are a wonderful thing!) Nothing anyone says could ever make me sorry I did it!

What I'd like to ask you is if you're serious about wanting abortion prohibited in all but exceptional cases, i.e. rape, incest, and immediate threat to the mother's life? Are you one of those tree-whispering whackaloons who believes that even rape babies and incest deformities should be incubated at whatever the cost? If so, what justification do you provide for exerting that sort of control over another person's body? Do you believe that the world would be a better, more harmonious place if every single fertilized egg were protected and defended until (and only until, it sometimes seems) it's born? Can you not concede that as unpleasant, reprehensible, tragic and unfortunate as abortion is, it is sometimes the only logical and humane choice for a desperate woman? Why would you want to take the option away altogether instead of merely discouraging it and working to offer practical & viable alternatives more intricate than merely "suck it up and take your punishment like a big girl"?

I'll stop here and give you space to answer my questions and ask whatever you will of me. I eagerly await your reply!