A hot topic in this year’s election is the women’s reproductive rights.

On one side you have most women and on the other you have people like Congressman Todd Akin who say things like “legitimate rape” doesn’t lead to pregnancy and that when a woman is raped “the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” Akin later apologized for his comment but the damage was done.

This is a tough issue, and it’s one that many people believe that politicians should stay away from. News-Sentinel.com wrote an article asking women in their local area what they think about the issue. The site received a few different answers.

Nancy Hansen believes that politicians should not have a say in something many of them do not know about because most of them are not doctors.

Mary Ann Schieferstein said, “It’s such a painful personal decision– to make political fodder out of it is, I think, un-Christian.” No matter where you fall on the issue it’s not something to take lightly.

I believe the government should not regulate what a woman does with her body. Making a law that says that a woman can’t make choices that only affect her and her child is ridiculous. It should be left to only her and the man that conceived the child.

I believe from a political standpoint that things like this have no real place in federal government. It’s either something the state should handle or it’s something that should be decided on a personal level– and I lean more towards the latter. I also think that as far as religion is concerned, specifically Christianity, people should really think about what criminalizing abortion does. If abortion becomes illegal do you really think that it’s going to stop people from finding a way to get one if they really want to?

As a Christian, one should be looking to change the heart through Christ. It should not be the law forcing people into changing their life– that’s called legalism.

But despite my political views I think life begins at conception. You can argue that technically the baby is not really a person, and I can argue right back that it is. I have my biblical views, but I know that somewhere, someone else has different ones. At the end of the day we need to agree to disagree.

I want to leave you with a passage from the Bible that points to my personal thoughts on the issue.

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, ever one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalms 139: 13-16).