Today at church my young women's group got into a discussion about abortion. Everyone there agreed that it wasn't okay, we're all pro-life, and that it was murder. But then we were talking about rape, and they all said that abortion was okay if you had been raped.

I don't get it. How does murder stop being murder for them just because it wasn't your choice to be pregnant? How is murder suddenly justifiable when it's because the baby is partly the product of someone you hate?

I'm really, really pro-life. Not to the extent that I would do anything crazy like blow up abortion clinics, because that's just really stupid, to murder people in opposition to murder. Blowing people up definitely isn't pro-life. And I'm not going to tell other people that they can't have abortions just because I think it's wrong. Or tell them they're horrible people for getting abortions. But I would never, ever, EVER have one, and I think there is only one instance in which I could justifiably even dream of having one: if it would kill me to have the baby. Rape? No... I believe abortion is murder. Rape doesn't change that it's murder.

I'm pro-choice in that I think people should choose to have sex or not based on whether they can deal with a baby. Not choose whether or not to kill the product of that sex. But I don't want to rant my own pro-life views... that wasn't the point of this post. The point is that I find it odd, how scared people are of rape, how horribly they view it. Rape is so horrible that it is enough to justify murder to most of my friends that are normally pro-life. There is no doubt in my mind that I would have that baby and give it up for adoption if I was raped. I have a hard time understanding how my friends don't feel this way too (my pro-life friends). I was wondering if maybe my lack of fear or repulsion of rape is caused by my having been raped.

The psychology of it is weird.

Another psychological question I have been pondering... no I'm not suicidal... why do you think more people cut their wrists when they attempt/commit suicide than their necks? Cutting your neck is probably the more painful but surefire way to do it. I asked someone about this this weekend and she said because most people that attempt suicide don't really want to go through with it and kill themselves. I don't really agree with this. I believe a lot of the people that attempt suicide have truly made up their minds to do it.
My shaky verdict is this: because they can't see their own necks. I was wondering why I would never cut my neck if I were to commit suicide, and I decided it is because if I were ever to commit suicide it would be because of a horrible lack of control in my life. And to cut my neck would be another lack of control. Your wrist is something you can see, a wound there is something you feel like you are controlling. Not your neck.

Wow that was really morbid... I'm not asking it becuase I'm thinking about suicide. I'm asking it because I'm thinking about the way people think and I love psychology and would be a psychiatrist if I thought I could handle it.