The umpteenth letter to the editor in our daily paper ranting how abortion is a moral failing that is ripping apart the very fabric of our country gave me pause. Its not that anyone was swaying my opinion that abortion is a medical procedure better performed in a clinic than a back alley, rather I thought “Really? Is there no other problem in the world? Nothing else to focus on but the thoughtless killing of innocent little lives also known as a blastocyst?”

I am firmly Pro-Choice, Pro-Abortion and Pro Women (& Human) Rights in general so its not like I don’t regularly defend attacks against Roe v. Wade, but I do have additional concerns, local, national, global political concerns to be precise. That’s what made me pause – the way folks can be so laser focused on this one issue – that there is no room for anything else.

That’s the real slippery slope if you ask me. Our decent into single issue politics and single issue law making. As if everything else falls away and policies are not interconnected. As if there are no repercussions for actions. That’s what leads to people thinking its OK to kill abortion doctors because on balance they save so many little baby fetuses that the end justifies the means.

Its sickening.

I worry about the implications of this slanted trajectory we are on as political citizenry. Tunnel vision – the lack of peripheral vision aka “the big picture” – is dangerous to those suffering from it and all the unfortunate people around them.