By Mark David Blum, Esq.

Not a year goes by when I do not stop at the anti choice booth set up in the Center of Progress Building. These are the folks who are against a woman’s right to choice and seek to mandate pregnancy upon all those who are considering alternatives.

Every year I roll up my sleeves and go after these folks in a tete a tete confrontation about ideals and policy. This year, the big advertisement by the anti choice folks is that they allege 1,770 female babies are aborted each year. They say this as though the taking of a male life by the same means is an irrelevancy. The immediate response was that since most people who argue with them say the issue of abortion is a woman’s rights and feminism argument, that showing the number of women being slaughtered through abortion is the proper response.

Well I am a man and I wont have anything to do with it. I am a pro choice advocate, not a big fan of feminism, and was totally appalled by the abandonment of males babies being aborted. Are males not worthy of discussion? Do we not deserve a seat at the table?

Then the quick witted servant of the Lord who manned the booth said to me, “it is a sin”. She said that abortion is a sin. Considering myself well read on both testaments I queried of her just where in the bible it says that abortion is a sin. That is when she came at me with the ten commandments. I can recite the ten commandments by heart and I know of no place therein where it says abortion is a sin. She replied, “haven’t you heard about the one that says thou shalt not kill?”

My response was dead on … the commandment says “thou shalt not murder”. Killing is something tolerated by the Bible in many passages but the easiest example is that a soldier is entitled to kill his enemy. Doing so is not murder. The woman refused the example and kept bouncing back to ‘thou shalt not kill’ and I kept dragging her back to the discussion of killing versus murder.

Then taking the coward’s way out, the woman announced that it was near 6 pm and time for her to leave and so she couldn’t continue the conversation. The small gathering of folks were smiling at me knowing I had won the argument.

It is indeed a sin to commit murder but nowhere in the Bible is there a prohibition against abortion. The woman was visibly shaken and had no answers for me and up and left the table. I too left knowing in my heart that I struck a victory for the pro choice movement. Now if only we can get these anti choice people to see that male babies are just as important as females.