Pro-life or pro-death? Pro-choice or pro-tyranny?

Imagine the political talk shows if moral questions were this easy to resolve. “Mr. Limbaugh, are you in favor of good things or bad things?” “Oh, well, I’ve always been a strong supporter of good things. Good is very good and definitely better than bad.”

If you haven’t already, someday you will come across someone who will ask you to stuff your opinions about abortion into one of two rigid classifications. And they won’t be satisfied until you do. Are you pro-life or pro-choice?

I am neither. I am Andrew Banyai. And I will not have my beliefs trivialized by being forced into a meaningless and empty label defining all sorts of attitudes I may or may not have. I have my own opinions about abortion, and they would probably anger most of you.

Not that my opinions on abortion are even slightly relevant. It’s not my decision and it never has been. By design, I don’t get to grow another human inside of me. That’s why legally, I can philosophize about the ethics of killing a fetus that will eventually become a human baby until said baby is out of college. It won’t matter, and I don’t really think it should.

There’s some connection between a mother and her children I’m only barely aware of. I sometimes get a glimpse of it in my mother when she thinks one of her children is in danger. It’s almost supernatural, and I would never hope to understand it, much less put it into words. I’m not trying to say the role of the father is less important, but I understand why the law is written the way it is.

What I can’t understand is these religious people’s insistence on forcing their rigid moral codes onto other people they have never even met.

I realize the anti-death movement is usually associated with conservatives, but like the aforementioned labels, I’m not sure what “conservative” (or even “Republican”) means anymore.

I would be a conservative Republican if the ones I had met weren’t all nuts. Because I agree with the basic conservative ideology - conserving the role of government.

Government should be protecting me from the terrorists who want to blow me up, not regulating what I see at the movies and what I hear from Eminem.

Real conservatives understand that forcing such questionable moral issues onto others (especially when they are so very important) will always cause more harm than good, even if your morals are correct. The sanctimonious forcing of your morals onto others - that’s a religious concept, and that’s who I’m blaming for a lot of the legal mess in this country.

So anyway, the chief of our executive branch, the president of the United States, who describes himself as “a secular official,” has deliberately appointed people to his administration who are actively seeking ways to eliminate abortion in this country. If you don’t believe this, ask him and see what he says.

It’s really a shame our current administration has no respect for the structure of government. Since 1973, the Supreme Court has held that abortions are a matter of privacy, and a constitutionally protected right. But that doesn’t matter to them. Framers of the Constitution be damned, they know what’s best not just for themselves, but for everyone in the whole world.

Their legal strategy for outlawing abortion is ingenious, cunning and will probably work. I saw the first sign of it in late April, when the House passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. It allows for criminal penalties when a person committing a felony injures an “unborn child” (isn’t that a contradiction?).

This law sounds fine. Even appropriate. But it caught my eye as the first step of a larger calculated purpose. It’s very subtle, so as not to draw too much attention. In defining an “unborn child” as someone against whom a crime can be committed, they’ve afforded fetuses legal protection under the law.

My inkling was confirmed last Thursday, I think, when the executive administration drafted a bill that would allow “unborn children” to receive - get this - medical coverage.

It sounds very nice, doesn’t it? I mean, who’s going to speak out against a bill like that? What’s wrong? Don’t you like fetuses?

I’m not old enough to remember when abortions were illegal. But I would never, ever assume it’s not something the government could criminalize. It’s made stupider things illegal before.

The success of this legal strategy is dependent upon a complacent American populace. So if you happen to be one of my readers whose opinions are relevant to the question of abortion, I implore you to be anything but indifferent. This doesn’t affect anyone more than you, and if you don’t speak, no one will. I swear to you that in this political climate, your silence will be devastating to all the freedoms you enjoy in this great country.

Andrew Banyai, a political science and pre-law senior, can be reached at banyaian@msu.edu.