The Kavanaugh approval has tossed America onto a new level of serious conflict.
His candidacy is as much about abortion as anything.
Do you know where you stand on abortion and why?
Many go ballistic over the subject with raw, irrational emotions.
We are forced to reconsider abortion rights due to the hysteria over the confirmation of the potential Supreme Court Justice, Brett Kavanaugh.
Democrats are paranoid that "the end of the democracy is at hand."
Simply talking about abortion is like walking through a minefield.
On social media, abortion is nothing less than radioactive.
Supporters of abortion are all about women’s right to choose or "Pro Choice." They say it’s their body and they have the right to do as they please. Any talk to the contrary will ignite screams of anger about men or government wanting to dominate or control women and their bodies.
But that is just the beginning, supporters will parade in protest as walking vaginas and claim loudly that if you don’t have a uterus, you don’t get to vote.
Men are accused of everything from demeaning verbal assaults to enabling a practice of physically assaulting women and get a pass.
Those who call themselves "Pro Life," are equally adamant that abortion is nothing less than murder. They believe all abortions must stop to protect the sanctity of life. Much of this is driven by religious and moral beliefs that says killing perfectly healthy unborn babies is not only wrong, but criminal.
Now consider these staggering facts: The CDC reports over the past decade legal abortions have been declining from over 1,200,000 to as low as 600,000 (plus thousands not reported or illegal) done each year in America and we are 10th in the world of all nations in the numbers of legal abortions.
The places with the highest percentage of abortions are Washington D.C., New York and New Jersey.
More facts from the CDC and Guttmacher Institute: in 2014, 19 percent of all pregnancies ended in abortion (not counting natural miscarriages) and unmarried women accounted for 86 percent of all abortions; White patients accounted for 39 percent, Black for 28 percent and Hispanic for 25 percent.
One in five women will have an abortion by age 30; one in four by age 45.
The more you dive into the full dimension of the abortion problem, it gets very complicated. There is simply no easy answer and the best we have is the famous Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade.
The decision "established a woman’s right to have an abortion without undue restrictive interference from the government. The Court held that a woman’s right to decide for herself to bring or not bring a pregnancy to term is guaranteed under the 14th Amendment."
While polls show almost two thirds of Americans support this decision, there is fear that at some point the Supreme Court will reverse this decision. It may not be considered "settled law"; that is, abortion is unresolved and is still subject to legal dispute.
Liberals want to protect Roe v. Wade and Conservatives want to reverse it. Reversal, in a worst case scenario that is highly unlikely, would not outlaw abortion as it would be left to the States to decide.
However, the broadcast media and special interest groups will create a frenzy of fear. The confirmation process is a lightning rod for crisis and confrontation with angry Democrats.
Planned Parenthood says over 85 percent of abortions are performed in the first trimester. That also means babies are aborted in the second trimester but remains less than 2 percent in the third trimester. This includes exceptional situations such as rape, incest, underage, critical health of mother and baby.
What is horrific to many is that most experts agree that a baby can live outside of the womb at about 24 weeks. It is fully formed, with arms, legs, a brain and a beating heart. The thought of destroying these lives through "Dilation and Evacuation (after 16 weeks) or Extraction (after 21 weeks)" is gut-wrenching.
To watch videos of the actual operation and how these babies are killed once removed from the womb will make anyone cringe in anguish.
There is no middle ground. Some believe that a woman should have the right to decide what to do in the first 4 or 5 months, but after that the mother’s rights should be surrendered to the baby, which should have rights as a human being, especially at the 20-24-week mark.
Guttmacher reports over 75 percent of the reasons for aborting a pregnancy focus on simply not wanting a child.
On the other hand, forcing a mother to have a baby it does not want is horrendous. No one can understand the anguish of such a personal decision by a woman.
And so, the dilemma is a conundrum.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: The abortion dilemma