January 22, 2006

Rowe v. Wade.

Almost everyone has a side.

One camp believes that a woman has the right to choose whether or not to have her baby.  The other side believes they have no choice, since a soul is in existence from the moment of conception.

Yes, a woman should have a choice.

Yes, it is extinguishing a life.

A living paradox.  Each answer is right at the same time it is wrong.

To those who are sure that a human exists from the moment of conception, I would ask how they explain identical twins.  Because the egg is divided after conception, they must conclude that the soul has also been split.  Two identical humans, each surviving a lifetime with half of the other's soul.  Triplets, three ways; quadruplets, four ways.  What of human chimeras, non-identical twins that somehow fuse into one?  Does this person have two souls to accompany their two sets of DNA?

A good argument, but there's the other side of the paradox.

Are we not to save lives when possible?  I have spent most of my life making sure people don't have the freedom of choice.  Every patient that has ever lived within these walls would choose to extinguish their life, if they had the right to choose.  This asylum was built to take away that freedom in the spirit that life is worth saving, even when the host doesn't wish it.  Even when we no longer see a soul behind their eyes.

Who decides when a soul exists?  Who decides when others should dies?

We all do.  Right or wrong, we all decide.