I was eating out at a mexican fast food joint with my family when I came across an extremely interesting article. It was in the Boulder post, no less (for those who don’t know: Boulder is a county in Colorado).

What I read pretty much shocked me. Of course, I had read about amendment 48, but I had no idea just how extreme the implications would be once it passed.

What most know about the amendment is that it would define a fertilized egg as a human being, preventing abortion. What most do not know is that it would also render many methods of birth control illegal, as many prevent pregnancy by stopping the newly fertilized egg from attaching itself to the wall of the uterus.

According to the article:

…about 30 to 70 percent of the time, the fertilized egg fails to implant and is flushed from the woman’s body during her next menstrual period without her ever knowing about it. This is not considered a miscarriage because the egg never implanted and never initiated the physical changes of pregnancy. IUDs make the uterine lining hostile to fertilized eggs, preventing them from implanting and thus halting a pregnancy before it can begin.

The article later continues:

Hormonal birth control works to prevent pregnancy in three ways: by preventing ovulation from occurring; by making the mucus in a woman’s cervix hostile to sperm; and by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg, should a woman have “break-though” ovulation. The fertilized egg is simply flushed unnoticed from the woman’s body like so many others.

In this case, most doctors say that no miscarriage or abortion has occurred because the fertilized egg hadn’t implanted and therefore the woman wasn’t yet pregnant. But some conservative Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, consider IUDs and hormonal birth control to be abortifacients because they can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting. For them, “conception” is the moment of fertilization, not the successful implantation of an embryo. In their view, anything that interferes with that embryo’s implantation isn’t contraception; it’s abortion.

Not only is this the case, but many pregnant women would be denied healthcare in cases where it may potentially harm the embryo, as doctors would have to consider both the woman and her unborn baby as equals. In the three countries that legally recognize fertilized eggs as human lives, the result has been many avoidable deaths of women. Although technically the woman and the unborn child have equal rights under the law, the unborn child ends up having more rights than its mother when healthcare providers are afraid to even consider lifesaving medical procedures for fear of being prosecuted.

Now, I’m not rephrasing the article in oder to make the point that all citizens concerned for the rights of embryos are also committed to killing/hurting women and so forth. I understand the views of those against abortion, even live with some of them. It just seems to me that in the race to legally prohibit certain procedures, people forget how complicated abortion is, and how many unforseen circumstances can arrise when people try to prohibit it.

If abortion is made illegal, or even birth control, it will not stop happening. Instead, back-door methods will be used. Although, in the US, unplanned births are escalating, it’s still taboo to have a random child you can’t support, if the whole Jaimie Lynn Spears fiasco has taught us anything. Even more importantly, getting rid of an option for suddenly pregnant women and girls cuts off one more option, and many end up raising a child they cannot support as a result.

To pro-lifers out there: if you really want to stop abortions, expand people’s options. Promote condom usage and other methods of birth control, fund crisis pregnancy centres, and make adoption a viable option. Taking away abortion rights isn’t helping women by taking away the trauma of the event if they have to spend the next good portion of their life working to raise a baby they can’t afford. Instead, giving women condoms, or creating more comprehensive adoption agencies prevents both uncomfortable circumstances.

Abortion is by no means a simple issue. If anyone is out there considering supporting some kind of amendment 48-type bill, I strongly urge them to think of the real implications before going ahead.