Abortion- An act of Honor?

We sit and denounce other cultures for demanding that death is the response to dishonor. In the Orient, it was customary to commit suicide if you dishonored the family. Those who believe in the old ways still practice it. In the Middle East, family members are killed if they dishonor the family. In Europe, duels were fought to protect the honor of the family name. That same practice was carried over to this nation and stories were written and still are being written glorifying these acts of honor.

The one thing we can gather about these acts are that societies around the world placed a very great importance on family honor. Honor has such importance that even Christianity has the honor of the family in its commandments, “Honor thy mother and father.”

Now what it is about honor that societies demanded such a price when one did not abide by that law, I have no idea. I will say though that families have always been most honored of institutions within a society throughout the ages.

The reason I brought this subject up is that we, as a nation, still practice this belief. We practice it in the legalization of abortion. In order to understand this we must return to the past and remember just why. It is a tale that, in a sense, would boggle the mind of those who never experienced life before the Roe vs Wade decision.

While there are many stories floating around about the horrors that women went through with those so-called back alley abortions you will hardly, if ever, hear of the reasons why women were willing to risk their lives by submitting to having one. One big reason for a woman to have an abortion back then was to hide the fact from the family. A woman who bore a child out of wedlock would and could be disowned by the family for dishonoring the family name.

So, abortions were performed on women to hide the fact that they dishonored the family. There were other ways that were used to hide the fact of this dishonor but we are focusing on abortion now. So, what the Supreme Court actually did when declaring abortions as a constitutional right is to perpetuate the idea that to dishonor the family requires the cost of a life.

There will be those who will argue differently but their argument will not change the facts. Family honor is still one of the biggest reasons why women will submit to an abortion, especially for teenaged girls.

Family honor was one of the hidden reasons for the attack on Sarah Palin when it was found out that her daughter was pregnant. Family honor was also one of the hidden reasons for revealing that the father of the child intended on marrying her. Think about it. If her daughter had submitted to an abortion, which no one outside of the family would have known about, would it have become an issue in the presidential elections?

If we really examine all the reasons used to justify abortion we will, surprisingly, find that family honor is the core reason. Abortion is the hidden act of protecting the honor of a family.