If Life Really Began at Conception…
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. The point of that old saying is that sometimes getting what you have always wanted can turn out to be more hassle than it’s worth. Just look at any Twilight Zone episode. The Indiana General Assembly is on the verge of getting something it might not want.
Lawmakers are currently debating several measures that would restrict abortion rights. One bill passed out of the House would force doctors to tell a woman that life begins at conception. Please note, when this measure was debated in the House Public Policy and Veterans Affairs Committee there were no medical experts who testified. I don’t see why this measure wouldn’t pass in the State Senate, so let’s for sake of argument this measure passes and becomes law. Get your wading boots on because I am about to open the floodgates.
You see, if it is the official policy of the State of Indiana that life begins at conception then logic would dictate that your date of birth would not be the day you were born, but the day you were conceived. Why are you looking at me like that? It makes perfect sense. Boy meets girl in January 1986. Boy buys girl a few drinks. Boy and girl have sex in odd place. Girl gets pregnant. Baby is conceived. Life has begun. Nine months later baby is born. Twenty years later baby (now a young man) is ticketed for underage drinking. He goes to court. Evidence is presented. The Court asks him for his defense. He tells them he was not drinking underage because he actually 21. The Court says no you are not! You are 20, because you were born in September 1986. The defendant says “No, your honor. Under Indiana law, life begins at conception. So following that logic I was ‘born’ the day I was conceived which was January 1986, not September.” Defendant goes home with a big smile on his face. And his lawyer, me, gets a big check.
By making it state policy that life begins at conception, Indiana is potentially sitting on a big can of worms. For example, the age of consent for minors to marry is 17. Now it’s 16. Laws prohibiting sex with minors have been pushed back nine months. And 17-year olds can now buy cigarettes and pornography without fear of reprisal and 16-year olds can catch the latest R-rated movies and hold their heads up high and look forward to the day where they can drink at 20. Oh, don’t forget at age 17 they’ll be able to sign contracts and get credit cards. That may be a little difficult for the ones who dropped out of school at 15. Do you feel yourself knee-deep in water yet?
The point of this is simple. In the zeal to clamp down on abortion, lawmakers continue to act first and think later. A reasonable approach would be to provide women with more alternatives to abortion, i.e. make adoption easier, offer more pre-natal care, do a better job of forcing the fathers of these women to pay child support and live up to their responsibilities. There are a lot of things lawmakers can do. But silly posturing should not be one of them, especially people of their ages; which by the way by their definition is nine months older than is listed on their birth certificates.
