I am often taken back by the hypocrisy of Albany County’s Health Department campaign, “Even One Child’s Death is Too Many.”

The county is very concerned about children drowning, people not stopping for school buses, or mother’s having children in bed with them and accidentally crushing them, but not so much about abortion. Any way you look at it, a child dies.

Now I’m not one to say that abortion should be banned, but it shouldn’t be celebrated nor should it be common. If you engage in a sexual act, you are creating a child. If you change your mind after the fact and get an abortion, you are killing a child.

There are many reasons abortion should be available. It’s basic healthcare and it can save lives of the mother, who might be burdened by a child birth and raising when they are unprepared. Or the pregnancy could be very risky. But by no means should it be free and without consequences.

Maybe the penalty could be a civil offense or a misdemeanor for all but the most egregious offenses like woefully reckless sexual behavior. Penalties could be as minor as just a required public apology and legal record of the death. There should be at least an acknowledgement that a child was created who later was killed.

It shouldn’t be about denying a necessary abortion but I don’t agree with celebrating it as a right or as a form of liberation. After all, it is the intentional death of a child, which in many ways is more tragic then an accidental drowning, crash or crushing. Abortion should be available, but it shouldn’t be free or without consequence.