According to Salon.com, "On Friday night's "Law & Order," the abortion debate was represented by two separate, yet equally important, groups: The anti-choicers, who believe fetuses' rights trump women's, and the pseudo-pro-choicers, who are conveniently persuaded to agree with them by the end of the episode."

Sound Familiar?

While reading Harding's details of the episode, she pointed out that the writers and producers took a fictional approach to addressing the late Dr. Tiller's assassination for providing late-term abortions to women.

The episode, titled "Dignity", inevitably ends with the pro-choicers realizing that abortion is wrong and converting to being pro-life!

WOW!

According to Harding, "The writers made a weak pretense of "balance" by having two of the series regulars -- Detective Lupo and Assistant D.A. Rubirosa -- espouse pro-choice views, but both are ultimately shamed into thinking they just might be wrong. See how even-handed?"

That's not how it usually happens....

The catch in this episode is that they use the "Stereotypical situation when people think about abortion"

The Rape Victim, The "Poor Minorities", the Single Mother...

Ummm..No, Let's talk about the facts and I'll get back into the episode.....

Half of the roughly 1.2 million U.S. women who have abortions each year are 25 or older. Only about 17 percent are teens. About 60 percent have given birth to least one child prior to getting an abortion.

A disproportionately high number are black or Hispanic. And regardless of race, high abortion rates are linked to hard times.

“It doesn’t just happen to young people, it doesn’t necessarily have to do with irresponsibility,” said Miriam Inocencio, president of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island. “Women face years and years of reproductive life after they’ve completed their families, and they’re at risk of an unintended pregnancy that can create an economic strain.”

According to MSNBC, "In fact, the women come from virtually every demographic sector. But year after year the statistics reveal that black women and economically struggling women — who have above-average rates of unintended pregnancies — are far more likely than others to have abortions. About 13 percent of American women are black, yet new figures from the Centers for Disease Control show they account for 35 percent of the abortions. "

“It wasn’t a hard decision for me to make, because I knew where I wanted to go in my life — I’ve never regretted it,” said Kimberly Mathias, 28, an African-American single mother from Missouri.

She had an abortion at 19, when she already raising a 2-year-old son.

“It wasn’t hard to realize I didn’t want another child at that time,” Mathias said. “I was trying to take care of the one I had, and going to college and working at the same time.”

She was able to graduate, now has an insurance job, and — still a single mother — has a 3-year-old son as well as her first-born, now 11.

ON THE OTHER SIDE....

According to MSNBC, "By contrast, Alveda King, a niece of Martin Luther King Jr., calls herself a “reformed murderer” for undergoing two abortions when she was young.

“We give free sex education, free condoms, free birth control,” she complained. “That’s almost like permission to have free sex, and the higher the rate of sexual activity, the higher the rate of unintended pregnancy.”

She contends that abortion-rights supporters tempt black women into abortion by suggesting they can’t afford to raise the child. But Gardner also acknowledges that some black women make this argument on their own.

“We had the whole civil rights movement — now we’re in a place where we’re moving further toward equality,” Gardner said. “So women think, ‘For once, I can see the American dream. I can have the house and the job, but it would postpone it to have another child. I can’t afford to take time off.’ ”

According to MSNBC, "Dr. Vanessa Cullins, a black physician who is Planned Parenthood’s national vice president for medical affairs, said the allegations of “black genocide” do not help women meet day-to-day challenges.

“These actions take attention away from medically proven ways to reduce unintended pregnancy — comprehensive sex education, affordable birth control, and open and honest conversations about relationships,” she said

“Groups that become assimilated in U.S. culture and experience economic opportunities naturally decide to limit family size, because they want to take part in the American dream,” she said. “If you’re a single mother, achieving the dream is all the harder, so it makes sense to limit family size so you can shower as much support as you can on the children you have.”

According to MSNBC, "Martha Girard, on the other hand, says she’s appalled by the notion that women should lose the right to choose.

A hospital ultrasound technician from Pleasant Prairie, Wis., and a mother of three, Girard had an abortion two years ago, at the age of 44, when she mistakenly thought she was too old to get pregnant.

Having been through three difficult pregnancies previously, and coping with a mentally disabled eldest son, she felt abortion was the prudent choice.

“I knew that this pregnancy would end up badly — I could feel it — and we’ve already got enough problems with the mentally ill son,” Girard said.

“I was very sad and depressed the first week,” she added. “But because it’s hard on you emotionally and some women regret it, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, that someone else should decide for you.”

Guttmacher researchers surveyed abortion providers there as well as in other states to produce the latest national estimate of 1.2 million abortions in 2005. That’s down from a peak of 1.6 million in 1990 but still represents more than 20 percent of all pregnancies.

New York, New Jersey, California, Delaware, Nevada, Maryland and Florida had the highest abortion rates in 2005, according to the new Guttmacher report released this week. Wyoming, Idaho, Kentucky, South Dakota and Mississippi had the lowest rates — the latter two states have just a single abortion clinic in operation.

Susan Hill, founder of the National Women’s Health Organization that runs the remaining Mississippi clinic, says the statistics may not fully reflect a subgroup of relatively affluent women who obtain unreported abortions through their private doctors.

“In Mississippi, it’s the poor women who don’t have access to that who have to run through the maze of protesters screaming and yelling abuse,” Hill said. “Wealthier women can be more creative about their alternatives.”

“I don’t think most people understand that these are women who have families, who are making a very serious decision about their reproductive health,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “The stereotype is that the decision is made lightly. It is not.”

Okay, I've bombarded you with Statistics, I wanted you to see stories from all sides. This is what being Pro-Choice, Pro-LIfe is all about. FACTS! Making that choice to either bring a life into the world or not is not an easy task that women take lightly. That is one of the misconceptions of abortion. People aren't eager to abort their babies, they take time to think about their situation and how the baby will play a part in the bigger picture.

One of my favorite quotes by Dr. Tiller is..

"Women and Families are intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and ethically competent to struggle with complex health issues -- including abortion -- and come to decisions that are appropriate for themselves."

Okay...back to the episode of Law and Order

So, Harding gives us a tidbit of the dialogue between both detectives, I want you to read this...

Lupo: If you think forcing an 11-year-old rape victim to give birth is OK, then you and I got nothing to talk about.

Bernard: You got it backwards, man. The horrible thing is the rape, not the bringing of a life into the world!

Point (according to the writers): Bernard. Seriously. Rape is bad and all, but an 11-year-old child enduring pregnancy and life-threatening labor to give birth to her own sibling is totally cause for celebration.

According to Salon.com's Kate Harding, these are the important things to take from this episode according to Law and Order:

Over the course of the investigation and trial, we will learn the following:

-- As long as a man offers to "get three jobs" to pay for round-the-clock healthcare, there is no reason on earth why a woman in her right mind would consider terminating a pregnancy just because the fetus has been diagnosed with a rare, devastating, potentially fatal illness.

-- The tide has turned! The majority of Americans are pro-life now! This news comes from Executive A.D.A. Cutter (who, incidentally, believes "an unborn child is a life and a soul.") Here are a few points Rubirosa, representing the pro-choice viewpoint in this scene, might have made in response: 1) And yet abortion remains legal in New York, whereas murdering doctors in church is not; 2) That's based on a Gallup poll in which 51 percent of those surveyed self-identified as "pro-life," yet only 22 percent believed abortion should be illegal in all circumstances; 3) What do you expect after 30 years of rhetoric and laws designed, as Frances Kissling put it, "by anti-abortion advocates eager to play up the public distrust of women, teens and poor people"? Here's what Rubirosa actually says in response: "Most Americans don't live in New York. I doubt we'll draw an anti-choice jury here." Because everyone knows that all 8 million people in New York City are godless liberals, LOL! And that is so totally what a committed pro-choice woman would point out!

-- Big boss (and "L&O" moral center) Jack McCoy's "daughter was pro-choice until she taped a sonogram of [his] grandchild-to-be on her refrigerator." Here is one salient point Rubirosa, still representing the pro-choice viewpoint in this scene, might have made in response: That's nice, but about 60 percent of women who have abortions are already mothers, so it turns out even having hard evidence that fetuses sometimes turn into real, live babies doesn't make every pregnancy a wanted one! Here's what Rubirosa actually does in response: Look chagrined.

-- Dr. Benning once (or was it only once?) botched a late-term abortion, causing the woman to go into labor and deliver a live baby. So, as any good abortion provider would, he asked the accidental mother if he should "finish the job" and then stabbed the live baby in the head with a pair of scissors. We learn this from the nurse who attended the homicide, then subsequently left the clinic and went to work in a neo-natal unit at a hospital, symbolically converted to the pro-life cause. No one representing the New York criminal justice system ever thinks to ask this nurse why she didn't, you know, report the murder she witnessed. The important thing, obviously, is that the experience changed her heart. (Also, may we remind you that this story is fiction, any resemblance, blah blah blah? Because this is totally not meant to viciously assault the memory of Dr. Tiller or confirm anti-choicers' deranged fantasies about him or anything. The disclaimer was right there, people!)

-- Speaking of which, when Dr. Hern Carhart Something or Other, one of the only remaining late-term abortion providers in totally fictional America, takes the stand, we get about 30 seconds on the reality of late-term abortion -- only to set up the big question from the killer's lawyer: Be honest, doc, would you perform an illegal abortion? The doctor loses it: "Even if the politicians bow to the hypocrites and fools, it won't stop us!" Then he twirls his mustache, leaps over the witness stand, and runs out of the courtroom screaming, "You'll never stop us! Not until all of your precious babies are dead!" OK, maybe not all of that happened -- my eyes were so sprained from rolling by that point, I couldn't see clearly -- but enough of it did.

-- It's wrong to kill doctors and stuff, but the good news is, if an abortion provider is murdered the day before a woman is scheduled to have an abortion because the fetus was diagnosed with a rare and potentially devastating illness, and you live in a country where there are almost no late-term abortion providers to begin with? That baby will get itself born and be so damned cute everyone will be thrilled and see no point in even thinking about how ill he is, how young he might die, how much care he'll need, how that care will be paid for, how his single mother will cope with being his constant caregiver, how she'll earn an income, or how her choice about her own body and life was made irrelevant by a homicidal zealot. JUST LOOK AT THE FACE! Oh, and if you're a woman whose fetus is diagnosed with a fatal disease and you don't choose to terminate the pregancy? Your baby will live for 21 hours and die painlessly in your arms, after which you can mourn her death and "feel clean." Because that's exactly how it works when you don't choose a dirty abortion: The child never suffers, her life ends peacefully in less than a day, and everyone goes home grieving but changed for the better. It is just that simple.

My Thoughts....

As you can probably already detect I'm pro-choice, but I'm not pro-abortion. I believe women have the right to choose to parent or not to parent. They are mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically capable of making that decision for themselves and should not be harassed or discouraged to do so. Late-Term Abortion clinics, whether you agree with them or not, should not be burned down, the provider should not be murdered, and the staff should not have to protect themselves because people want to be the judge and destroy something because it's not what they believe. As a Christian and someone who is pro-choice I believe that Murder is wrong, no matter what it is. But, I also believe that we are not the judge and should not force our judgement and views on others either. We are all God's children and should act like that. Why are you making someone feel bad because they make a decision you don't agree with, GET OVER IT! Life is too short and everyone was born with 5 senses and one of those was the ability to take the road they feel is right for their life. You don't know their situation or what in their life is the probable cause of the things they do, so worry about your life and quit trying to run others lifes, it's not okay and it's sort of "depression and pathetic!" You may not agree with my views, but you should defend to the death my right to have them and express them.

I loved how Katie Harding summed it all up, so I'm leaving her words as the last quote of my post!

Except for how none of it is anywhere near as simple as this episode makes it out to be. Late-term abortion providers are not murderers by every possible definition, removing any doubt about the morality of their work. They do not operate outside the law or announce in court that they believe they're above it. Women forced to give birth do not just magically find the will and resources to care for a child -- in many cases, another child -- no matter how sweet a baby's face is. Lifelong pro-choicers are not often hit with the epiphany that golly, fetuses can turn into babies, after which they can no longer be sure where "[their] privacy ends and another being's dignity begins" -- but you can bet that's what happened to Rubirosa, just like McCoy's daughter. Babies born two months prematurely to poor women of color who tried desperately to end their pregnancies do not automatically grow up to be New York's finest, and never you mind the in-between stuff. An 11-year-0ld rape victim's pregnancy is not some unexpected yet joyful miracle. And a woman who gets a terrible fetal diagnosis late in a wanted pregnancy will not clearly be better off, emotionally, physically or otherwise, if she gives birth.

To Read More of Jessica Harding's Article, click here.

Below you find the episode of Law and Order about "Dignity", enjoy this is their LIVES and here are their STORIES!