Required Reading

There are many topics about which I feel very passionately, even if they don't affect me. One of those is abortion. I am adamantly pro-choice, and oppose passing legal restrictions such as parental/spousal notification, waiting periods, etc. I don't want to get into a full discussion of these topics, so I will instead offer a few questions for you to ponder: Who will these legal restrictions affect? Who would have an abortion without informing their spouse or parents? What is the result of making a woman who has decided to get an abortion wait longer? Discuss amongst yourselves...

The real reason I wanted to post about abortion is this article, which is getting a lot of mention in the blogosphere. It shows what happens when you have radical laws passed by well-meaning conservatives trying to protect a "culture of life." It really is a must-read. Here's a quote from the end: "I was there to see Carmen Climaco. She is now 26 years old, four years into her 30-year sentence. She has three children, who today are 11, 8 and 6 years old. [...] She'd had a clandestine abortion at 18 weeks[...]. It's just that she'd had an abortion in El Salvador."